Bump!

Long time no post! Whaddup, my starved, raving fans? If y'all have been as busy as I have since my last post, I'm pretty sure I haven't been missed all that much X-)

In a nutshell.... with bullets:

- What kind of nut has a shell like that, I wonder? -

- Me, probably. Oh well, continuing... -

* I scored a 7.54 last sem! New personal record, woot!

* We've moved to Bombay! Yay Bombay! Real chicks, at last! Not to mention, food!

* Met up with old friends, made new ones, had a ball...

* Industrial Training -> After a lot of running around last sem, I finally managed to land one! MazDock was great, and the big bad General Electric LM2500 gas turbines were every engineer's dream. Too bad they didn't fire the thing while I was there.

* Returned to college a month early, in hungry anticipation of a job. IOCL and SJVNL shortlisted candidates, not that I'd have sat in either, my anti-PSU thing is still on. Ashok Leyland ditched us, as did Telconn, with the latter popping up a month later only to drop a bomb on our headds and call just four students. And AshLey's still playing truant.

* Passion, Passion, what is life without Passion? Specifically, football. Something went fzzt in my head over the summer, and when I came back to horrorpur all I could think about was football. All those memories of countless evenings spent chasing leather in rain-blessed wellington came flooding back, and it was like a dam had burst inside me - Armed (or rather, footed) with a new pair of VectorX "Terrors", I made my return to The Beautiful Game after nearly nine years. Inter-Branch was a revelation, my feet found their song, and even that one horrific moment - an own goal in the final match - couldn't extinguish the flames. I feel like I've been born again, and woken up to the world with a song in my heart and studs on my feet. When I'm on the field, I feel faster, stronger and more alive than I've ever been, and its like a world's been opened to me, something that I was ignoring for all these years. I'm free, and I'm flying. Even if its on grass.

* Oh, The Big News -> The Man got placed! Now who'd have thought that an overfed, long-haired, leaping gnome, would get placed in Tata Motors, hmmm?


*Gymmed hard for two months, before placement season started. Put on six kilos, after scaling down my routine to 3 sets of four exercises (Military Press, Deadlift, Squat, Bench)

* Again, took part in Inter-Branch football, in September. Fullback/Halfback. Played a mean game, with hard tackles and long clearances. Reached the finals, and then I went and scored an own goal. No, dont want to talk about it. Match went to penalties, we lost 4-3, life's a bitch.

* Been allotted singlets this year. Fancy hostel, big rooms, etc etc. And BORING! Singlets for undergrads should be banned, especially for the gregarious like me! More doors than friends, it feels like.

* Eric's internal speaker went kpft, after five years of stellar service. Keypad's started jamming as well, and the display's gone pretty hazy, so I decided it was time for a replacement. Picked up a Nokia 5130 XpressMusic. 1GB card included. Great sound, feature-packed for a budget phone, vibrant display, responsive keypad. ATROCIOUS BATTERY! The darn thing needs charging every frikkin day! 5 year old Eric still lasts for three! What a let down!

* After last sem's fabulous project, the VAWT, was shot down (yes, by my own comrades!) in august, we started work on a funnel-shaped solar cooker, as described by the people over at Bringham Young University.

http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/funnel.htm

Simple enough. We've made ours out of GI and aluminium foil, with a black-painted tin formerly containing twenty-five (25) delicious rasgullas, courtesy Pranay. Took us around four hours in the workshop, and trials are underway this week. Water's reached finger-blistering-ow-ow-ow temperature within half an hour, and we're gonna try cooking some rice tomorrow. Pics to follow.

All for now. Oh, and Hill 'Ffair starts on friday, and although I'm not participating (bball tourney a week after), I *am* thrilled, 'coz Ivan's coming here for the fest. Pics over the weekend.

The Man

That time of year again...

Exams are on! Automobile was yesterday, and for the first time in six semesters, I actually sat through the whole three hours (serious!) and wrote stuff in the answer booklet! Gave more than a few heart-attacks all around, people were getting worried looking at my pen. I'm probably gonna try it again, got three more papers. ;-)

Well, maybe not in Machine Design (too'sday).

Erm, played tennis after ages yesterday, surprisingly I wasn't as rusty as I had feared. I guess all those years of coaching (not to mention dad and uncle's version of tennis - dodgeball!) came in handy after all. Probably go again today, though a few of our faculty have started coming too, and I have to answer uncomfortable questions about the exams - "Why are you even here???" being the first.

What else? Oh, yeah, new wallpaper, new theme! Not really different, I think I'll revert back to the previous one next week. Finally got around to downloading Amarok, just added it to Awn a minute ago. Firefox has been updating on almost a daily basis for the last three days, and making me Ctrl+Alt+Backspace every time, even though it says that only ffox needs to be restarted. Probably got a couple of background services running regardless, thats why it needs the log-out-log-in. Was a little wary of upgrading to Firefox-3.0, it crashed my PulseAudio on 8.04, took a week of buggering before I sorted 'em both out. Running 8.10 on ALSA, just in case. Thankfully ffox din't mess with that!

All for now. Gotta run to the mess. Saturday morning, best brekka of the week! Chhole-Bathure, woot!

B-)

Final Fantasy XXX(?) - The Geek Within

Wide-Eyed, Red-Haired Anime Babes aside, its time I stopped being a closet-geek, and publicly embraced my Inner Penguin (Quack!). So, where do we stand? Ah yes, I'm typing this on Deep-Thought (Who, besides being the All-Powerful Fourteen-Dimensional GodZillion-Byte-Crunching Mechanical Marvel of the Ring-World Zorg, also happens to occasionally double up as my sleek black Compaq V3749AU lap-warmer. AMD Turion X2 procy, nVidia MoBo, 7150m Graphics, bla-bla-blah, details here) Apart from the OEM installation of Windoze Vista, which I use solely for gaming, DT's played host to Fedora 8 (Werewolf), Mandriva Spring 2008 (With KDE Goodness!), and as of now, Ubuntu 8.10. I fancied the 2.1 Ultimate Edition for a bit, but Ibex's load times (and hardware detection! beer!) wowed me right away, and its been 8.10 since Feb '09.

And since a picture speaks a thousand words, here's the rest of my essay:




More on what keeps DT beautiful as I keep learning! :)

The Man


Oh, and it turns out Penguins DONT quack!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081219154311AAxN8ZE

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>;-D

What An Athlete Lives For...

People don't play sports because its fun. Ask any athlete, most of them hate it, but they couldn't imagine their life without it. Its part of them, the hate/love relationship. It's what they live for. They live for the practices, parties, cheers, long bus rides, invitationals, countless pairs of different types of shoes, water, Gatorade, & coaches you hate, but appreciate.

They live for the way it feels when you beat the team next to you by 1 point in overtime & you know those 2 extra sprints you ran in practice were worth it. They live for the way you become a family with your team, they live for the countless songs you sing in your head when your running ALL those suicides. They live for the competition, they live for the friends, the practices, the memories, the pain, its who they are. It's who we are....



- Rob Blundred, Ohio


The man said it!

Talkin' 'bout Women!

Women behind bars,
Women in fast cars,
Women in distress,
Women with no dress!
Women in aeroplanes,
Women who play games,
Women in uniform,
See that woman with her clothes torn!

Women who satisfy,
Women you can't buy,
Like women in magazines,
And women in a limousine!
Women who sip champagne,
Women who feel no pain,
Women in a disco,
And women who don't wanna know, know, know!

Oh, women wanting sympathy,
Women feeling ecstasy!
Women who live in fantasies,
Bringing man to his knees!

Women who fall in love,
Women who need a shove,
Women who can't be beat,
Get that woman in the back seat, yeah, yeah!
Women in the U.S.A.
Those women steal your heart away!
Women into rock 'n' roll
Women who steal the show, go, go, go!

Women that you write songs about,
Women that turn around and kick you out!
Women you dream about all your life,
Women that stab you in the back with a switchblade kniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife!



Women FTW!!! Feb 14th, see you next year! :D

Do That Twist Thing, Da-Da-Da-DaDa-Da-Da!

Not a great start to the year! Jan 26th was my first day on the court, and not less than twenty minutes into the session, The Man was down with a sprain. And the real bummer -> Inter-Year BBall just started yesterday!!! Had to sit out the first game, and in all probability the next two as well. I hope to recover by the finals, if we make it to them.

ANOTHER fallout! Today's the inaugural match of this year's edition of NPL, and I'll have to watch from the stands as the Hornets take on the Harriers. Both naga and I are out, though his loss hopefully should trouble the Harriers more than my absence affects the Hornets' defensive line.

On a good note, 3rd years beat (whipped would be more apt) the 2nd years in the opening game of inter-year bball. 30-6 by the third quarter, after which I lost count. 'Atta-boys!!! Hope my Awe-Inspiring Presence won't be required on-court till the finals. Any further injuries and I'll be out of the squad for Jaipur...

4th vs 1st starting in thirty. My turn to referee.
Adios, amigos!


*RC-1138 "Boss" voice* Need.....Bacta....

*Walks in, takes a look around, scratches head*



Where is this thing going???



*Walks out, vehemently rings the neighbour's bell, runs*

Jumpin' Jack Flash

Right, to all my fans here in the blogsphere - real, imaginary, and out for lunch - cancel that MIA tag, I've just been feeling terrifically lazy (for a year and a half? wtf???) about blogging, primarily because of the lack of a pc in my room.

- Say hello to Deep Thought -

So, while this isn't exactly the best time to kick this e-can alive, I hereby promise to atleast not forget that I even have a blog (yes, I admit it, I did. But only for a few months. At a time. Please don't hit me.) and finally get around to the task of giving this thing some direction. Never fear, everybody's favourite aimless ramblings will still be a staple feature, but I'm also going to try to steer this boat towards something - anything - that'll serve remotely useful, now that I have another outlet for my same-sex-confinement-induced frustrations (thank you, mechanical engineering department!). I am, ofcourse, referring to Ghost Recon, Sins of a Solar Empire, Silent Hunter 3, Half-Life 2, and Call Of Duty 5 - If I can get the last one to work, that is. Yes, thats right, I have once again fallen into the juicy, delicious trap of expending all my testosterone-fuelled *ness (substitute whatever you want) into addictive, enthralling, and time-consuming video-games, instead of going out and getting a girlfriend. If anybody out there has any hints/clues/ideas/suggestions, please feel free - nay, invited - to drop me a line, I sure would regret graduating without atleast one, torrid, steamy, M&B-shocking....well, you get the picture.

Exams in TWO WEEKS TIME! We're dooooooooooomed!

Thats all for now, and do drop by in a month's time. Sorry I can't promise any posts before then, though I will try.

Quai-Gon-Jin-Not, Out.

Fantastic Four - All FF/Jessica Alba fans, have a decco....

Went for the movie today, closing my ears and mind to reviews from chaps who'd seen it already, and guess what? It wasn't bad at all! Especially for F4 fans like me. Okay, it didn't have any great dialogues or strong plots or drama or anything, but then, it never claimed to have any. It had the Four, it had the Surfer, it had von Doom, it had the Four-Mobile (or whatever they call it), and best of all, it had lots and lots of Jessica Alba. So why the complaints??? I say, if you're on summer break, you're vela (like you probably are), and you want to keep it light, go for it!!!

Thursday Mornink, 14th Zune, 10:00hrs

Woke up at five-thirty, looked out the window with a bleary eye, saw something dark, grey, and bleary - oh joy, its raining. Texted two fellow bballers, cancelled the morning session, gave another bleary look out the window, cursed the powers-that-be who felt like taking an early morning piss right on this city, of all the insanely exciting places they could've drenched instead (someone show them the way to Spain), and curled back into my armadillo-like sleeping-ball. Today is not going to be a good day.

Summer breaks, God's gift to students!

I'm finally home! All those days of worrying about whether my tickets are still with me, how much of my baggage is broken/torn/flicked after the semesterly chaos at Old Delhi's railway station, and whether I'll have a pretty girl to pass the three day train journey with or the standard-issue crying baby with clueless new mother that the guys in the Railways seem to take such merriment from in pairing me up with everytime. Turns out they're still having their fun, but someone there probably took pity on me - there was this rather pretty young thing in the compartment next to me, who seemed rather fascinated by my manipulations with the Rubic Cube and only went back to her compartment when her mother issued the summons - Trust me, four months without a haircut and two days without a bath, I'm not surprised her mother was worried either! MY mum went ballistic when she saw me, but thats a whole different paragraph.

This one, in fact. Now, spending 18 years with a buzz-cut leaves a young chap rather restless, even if he's been blessed with a headfull of Scotch-Brite. Turns out it makes a pretty neat mess that garners more than adequate attention when grown (and washed). Unfortunately, three days without a bath and comb (combing's useless, any attempt made at it just result in broken bits of plastic and a whole lot of pain, neither of which I like in my mane) rendered poor mum speechless for a change. That soon changed to a verbal flood, though, and I was given to understand that if I didn't lug my sorry posterior and accompanying body-parts en-totale to the barbers the very next morning before the world had a chance to look at me, life would be a whole lot different, and not in a very good way either.


To my credit, I held out a week :D

Just two weeks more in college and then I'm home, home home!!! PC, PC, PC!!! Been itching to get back to gamin', and with summer break starting right after the exams which start on wednesday :( , all i can think of is high-intensity Mach-50 dogfights hunting down Lagg and Basilisk heavy fighters in my Reaper outside Neptune orbit, dodging ambitious Kurgen Gunships and Kamov Torp Bombers while Varyag and Bremen Class A Carriers provide torpedo support to Kruyshin and Yamato class Battlecruisers as they fight it out with Plasma turrets and cruiser escorts! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!! How did I ever manage a whole year without computers??? I deserve a medal!

You've just got to love Wanda the Fish!

Q: How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a
light bulb?
A: Seven. Scotty has to report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb in
the Engineering Section is getting dim, at which point Kirk will send
Bones to pronounce the bulb dead (although he'll immediately claim
that he's a doctor, not an electrician). Scotty, after checking
around, realizes that they have no more new light bulbs, and complains
that he "canna" see in the dark. Kirk will make an emergency stop at
the next uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb
from the natives, who, are friendly, but seem to be hiding something.
Kirk, Spock, Bones, Yeoman Rand and two red shirt security officers
beam down to the planet, where the two security officers are promply
killed by the natives, and the rest of the landing party is captured.
As something begins to develop between the Captain and Yeoman Rand,
Scotty, back in orbit, is attacked by a Klingon destroyer and must
warp out of orbit. Although badly outgunned, he cripples the Klingon
and races back to the planet in order to rescue Kirk et. al. who have
just saved the natives' from an awful fate and, as a reward, been
given all light bulbs they can carry. The new bulb is then inserted
and the Enterprise continues on its five year mission.

Happy Birthday, Eric!

Yesterday was my phone's second b'day anniversary, its an Ericsson T-230, not too fancy, but definitely amongst the crummier versions. Mr. Ericsson was probably having a bad day when he approved the model. Trouble at home or something of the sort. You can never tell with these big-wigs.

So, like, my roomies 'n me decided to celebrate in style. We decked up the room with sand from the field, rainwater from the windows, smell from the neighbours, and messy clothes from our cupboards, organised coffee and egg-maggi, put on some jazzy filmi numbers, decked ourselves up in our very best pyjamas, spritzed on some Dabur Amla hair oil, and danced merrily around the room reciting Happy Birthday in various accents, but the phone had had a rough day, so it just popped an aspirin and switched itself off. Something about a Nokia N91 and Tri-band technology and something. Oh well. I guess i'd better tell Prabh to keep his phone in his pocket when he's in my room from now on. Atleast till I get the ericsson re-laminated. I think that might be whats causing all this trouble. Ego issues and all. You really never know.

But hey, atleast its better than last time when One Year Old Eric claimed that it was a product of evolving technology and seedy korean manufacturing plants, and tried to sue Motorola for using the same Switch-off key. Thank god its lawyer managed to convince it to visit re-hab for the weekend instead. Its expensive enough managing its Prepaid Talk-Time Recharge Coupons (tm) and whatnot. I think its time i reverted back to pigeons. Atleast they dont charge you extra on roaming!

The Private Life of Genghis Khan - DNA

The Private Life of Genghis Khan

by Douglas Adams
(based on an original sketch by Douglas Adams and Graham Chapman)


The last of the horsemen disappeared into the smoke and the thudding of their hooves receded into the grey distance.

The smoke hung on the land. It drifted across the setting sun, which lay like an open wound across the western sky.

In the ringing silence that followed the battle, very, very few, pitifully few cries could be heard from the bloody, mangled wreckage on the fields.

Ghostlike figures, stunned with horror, emerged from the woods, stumbled and then ran forward crying - women, searching for their husbands, brothers, fathers, lovers first amongst the dying and then amongst the dead. The flickering light by which they searched was that of their burning village, which had that afternoon officially become part of the Mongol Empire.

The Mongols.

From out of the wastes of central Asia they had swept, a savage force for which the world was utterly unprepared. They swept like a wildly wielded scythe, hacking, slashing, obliterating all that lay in their path, and calling it conquest.

And throughout the lands that feared them now or would come to fear them, no name inspired more terror than that of their leader, Genghis Khan. The greatest of the Asian warlords, he stood alone, revered as a God among warriors, marked out by the cold light of his grey green eyes, the savage furrow of his brow, and the fact that he could beat the shit out of any of them.

Later that night the moon rose, and by its light a small party of horsemen carrying torches rode quietly out from the Mongol encampment that sprawled over nearby hill. A casual observer would not have noticed anything remarkable about the man who rode at their centre, muffled in a heavy cloak, tense, hunched forward on his horse as if weighed down by a heavy burden, because a casual observer would have been dead.

The band rode a few miles through the moonlit woods, picking their way along the paths until they came at last to a small clearing, and here they reined their horses in and waited on their leader.

He moved his horse slowly forward and surveyed the small group of peasant huts that stood huddled together in the centre of the clearing trying very hard at short notice to look deserted.

Hardly any smoke at all was rising from the primitive chimney stacks. Virtually no light appeared at the windows, and not a sound could be heard from any of them save that of a small child saying "Shhhhh....."

For a moment a strange green fire seemed to flash from the eyes of the Mongol leader. A heavy deadly kind of a thing that you could hardly call a smile drew itself through his fine wispy beard. The strange kind of smiley thing would signify (briefly) to anyone who was stupid enough to look that there was nothing a Mongol warlord liked better after a day hacking people to bits than a big night out.

The door flew open. A Mongol warrior surged into the hut like a savage wind. Two children ran screaming to their mother who was cowering wide eyed in the corner of the tiny room. A dog yelped.

The warrior hurled his torch on to the still glowing fire, and then threw the dog on to it. That would teach it to be a dog. The last surviving man of the family, a grey and aged grandfather stepped bravely forward, eyes flashing. With a flash of his sword the Mongol whipped off the old man's head which trundled across the floor and fetched up leaning rakishly against a table leg. The old man's body stood tensely for a moment, not knowing what to think. As it began slowly, majestically to topple forward, Khan strode in and pushed it brusquely aside. He surveyed the happy domestic scene and bestowed a grim kind of smile on it. Then he walked over to a large chair and sat in it, testing it first for comfort. When he was satisfied with it he heaved heavy sigh and sat back in front of the fire on which the dog was now blazing merrily.

The warrior grabbed at the terrified woman, pushed her children roughly aside and brought her, trembling in front of the mighty Khan.

She was young and pretty, with long bedraggled black hair. Her bosom heaved and her face was stark with fright.

Khan regarded her with a slow contemptuous look.

"Does she know," he said at length in a low, dead voice, "who I am?"

"You... you are the mighty Khan!" cried the woman.

Khan's eyes fixed themselves on hers.

"Does she know," he hissed, "what I want of her?"

"I... I'll do anything for you, O Khan," stammered the woman, "but spare my children!"

Khan said quietly, "Then begin." His eyes dropped and he gazed distantly into the fire.

Nervously, shaking with fear the woman stepped forward and laid a tentative pale hand on Khan's arm.

The soldier smacked her hand away.

"Not that!" he barked.

The woman started back, aflutter. She realised she would have to do better. Still shaking, she knelt down on the floor and started gently to push apart the Khan's knees.

"Stop that!" roared the soldier and shoved her violently backwards. Bewilderment began to mix with the terror in her eyes as she cowered on the floor.

"Come on " snapped the soldier, "ask him what kind of day he's had."

"What...?" she wailed, "I don't... I don't understand what..."

The soldier seized her, span her into a half nelson, and jabbed the point of his sword against her throat.

"I said ask him," he hissed, "what kind of day he's had!"

The woman gasped with pain and incomprehension. The sword jabbed again. "Say it!"

"Er, what sort ...of... er, day..." she said in a hestitant, strangled squeak, "have you...had?"

"Dear!" hissed the soldier, "say dear!"

Her eyes bulged in horror at the sword.

"What sort of day have sort of day have you, had..., dear?" she asked querulously.

Khan looked up briefly, wearily.

"Oh, same as usual," he said, "violent."

He gazed back at the fire again.

"Right," said the soldier to the woman, "go on."

She relaxed very slightly. She seemed to have passed some kind of test. Perhaps it would be straightforward from now on and she could at least get it over with. She moved nervously forward and started to caress the Khan again.

The soldier hurled her savagely across the room, kicked her and yanked her screaming to her feet again.

"I said stop that!," he bellowed. He pulled her face close to his and breathed a lungful of cheap wine and week old rancid goat fat fumes at her, which failed to cheer her up because it reminded her sharply of her late lamented husband who used to do the same thing to her every night. She sobbed.

"Be nice to him!" the Mongol snarled and spat one of his unwanted teeth at her, "ask him how his work's going!"

She gawped at him. The nightmare was continuing. A stinging blow landed on her cheek.

"Just say to him," the soldier snarled again, "'How's the work going, dear?" He shoved her forward.

"How...how's the work going... dear?" she yelped miserably.

The soldier shook her. "Put some affection into it!" he roared.

She sobbed again. "How...how's the work going... dear?" she yelped miserably again, but this time with a kind of pathetic pout at the end.

The mighty Khan sighed.

"Oh, not too bad I suppose," he said in a world weary tone. "We swept through Manchuria a bit and spilt quite a lot of blood there. That was in the morning, then this afternoon was mainly pillaging, though there was a bit of bloodshed around half four. What sort of day have you had?"

So saying, he pulled a couple of scroll maps from out of his furs and started to study them abstractedly by the light of the smouldering dog.

The Mongol warrior pulled a glowing poker out of the fire and advanced menacingly on the woman.

"Tell him!" Go on! "

She leapt back with a shriek.

"Tell him!"

"Er, my husband and father were killed!" she said.

"Oh yes, dear?" said Khan absently, not looking up from his maps.

"Dog was burnt!"

"Oh, er, really?"

"Well, er, that's about it, really... er.."

The soldier advanced on her with the poker again.

"Oh, and I was tortured a bit!" shrieked the woman.

Khan looked up at her. "What?" he said, vaguely, "sorry dear, I was just reading this..."

"Right," said the soldier, "nag him!"

"What?"

"Just say, 'Look Genghis, put that thing away while I'm talking to you. Here I am, spend all day slaving over a hot...'"

"He'll kill me!"

"Bleeding kill you if you don't."

"I can't stand it!" cried the woman and collapsed on the floor. She flung herself on the great Khan's feet. "Don't torment me," she wailed, "if you mean to rape me, then rape me, but don't..."

The great Khan surged to his feet and glowered down at her. "No," he muttered savagely, "you'd only laugh - you're just like all the others."

He stormed out of the hut and rode off into the night in such a rage that almost forgot to burn down the village before he left.


===


After another particularly vicious day the last of the horsemen disappeared into the smoke and the thudding of their hooves receded into the grey distance.

The smoke hung on the land. It drifted across the setting sun, which lay like an open wound across the western sky.

In the ringing silence that followed the battle, very, very few, pitifully few cries could be heard from the bloody, mangled wreckage on the fields.

Ghostlike figures, stunned with horror, emerged from the woods, stumbled and then ran crying forward crying - women, searching for their husbands, brothers, fathers, lovers, first amongst the dying and then amongst the dead.

Far away behind the screen of smoke thousands of horsemen arrived at their sprawling camp, and with a huge amount of clatter, shouting and comparing of backhand slashes they dismounted and instantly started in on the cheap wine and rancid goat fat.

In front of his splendidly bedraped Imperial tent a bloodstained and battle weary Khan dismounted.

"Which battle was that?" he asked his son, Ogdai, who had ridden with him. Ogdai was a young and ambitious general, keenly interested in viciousness of all kinds. He was hoping to improve on his own Known World record for the highest number of peasants impaled on a single sword thrust and would be getting in some practice that night.

He strode up to his father.

"It was the Battle of Sammarkand, oh Khan!" he proclaimed, and rattled his sword in a tremendously impressive way.

Khan folded his arms and leant on his horse, looking over it across the dreadful mess they'd made of the valley beneath them.

"Oh, I can't tell the difference anymore," he said with a sigh, "did we win?"

"Oh yes! Yes! Yes!" exclaimed Ogdai with fierce pride, "it was a mighty victory indeed!

"Indeed it was!" he added and waggled his sword again. He drew it excitedly and made a few practice thrusts. Yes, he thought to himself, tonight he was going to go for the six.

Khan screwed his face up at the gathering dusk.

"Oh dear," he said, "after twenty years of these two hour battles I get the feeling that there must be more to life, you know." He turned, lifted up the front of his torn and bloodied gold embroidered tunic and stared down at his own hairy tummy. "Here, feel this," he said, "do you think I'm putting it on a bit?"

Ogdai gazed at the great Khan's tummy with a mixture of awe and impatience.

"Er no," he said "No, not at all." With a flick of his fingers Ogdai summoned a servant to bring the maps to him, ran him through, and as he fell caught from his nerveless but not entirely surprised fingers the plans of the grand campaign.

"Now, O Khan," he said, spreading the map over the back of another servant who stood specially hunched over for the purpose, "we must push forward to Persia, and then we shall be poised to take over the whole world!"

"No look, feel that," said Khan, pinching a fold of skin between his fingers, "do you think..."

"Khan!" interrupted Ogdai urgently, "we are on the point of conquering the world!" He stabbed at the map with a knife, catching the servant beneath a nasty nick on his left lung.

"When?" said Khan with a frown.

Ogdai threw up his arms in exasperation. "Tomorrow!" he said, "we start tomorrow!"

"Ah, well, tomorrow's a bit difficult, you see," said Khan. He puffed out his cheeks and thought for a moment. "The thing is that next week I've got this lecture on carnage techniques in Bokhara, and I thought I'd use tomorrow to prepare it."

Ogdai stared at him in astonishment as the map-bearing servant slowly collapsed on his foot.

"Well, can't you put that off?" he exclaimed.

"Well you see, they've paid me quite a lot of money for it already, so I'm a bit committed."

"Well, Wednesday?"

Khan pulled a scroll from out of his tunic and looked through it, shaking his head slowly. "Not sure about Wednesday..."

"Thursday?"

"No, Thursday I am certain about. We've got Ogdai and his wife coming round to dinner, and I'd kind of promised..."

"But I am Ogdai!"

"Well, there you are then. You wouldn't be able to make it either."

Ogdai's silence was only disturbed by the sound of thousands of hairy Mongols shouting and fighting and getting pissed.

"Look," he said quietly, "will you be ready to conquer the world... on Friday?"

Khan sighed. "Well the secretary comes in on Friday mornings."

"Does she."

"All those letters to answer. You'ld be astonished at the demands people try to make on my time you know." He slouched moodily against his horse. "Would I sign this, would I appear there. Would I please do a sponsored massacre for charity. So that usually takes till at least three, then I had hoped to get away early for a long weekend. Now Monday, Monday..."

He consulted his scroll again.

"Monday's out, I'm afraid. Rest and recuperation, that's one thing I do insist upon. Now how about Tuesday?"

The strange keening noise that could be heard in the distance at this moment sounded like the normal everyday wailing of women and children over their slaughtered menfolk and Khan paid it no mind. A light bobbed on the horizon.

"Tuesday - look, I'm free in the morning - no, hold on a moment, I'd sort of made a date for meeting this awfully interesting chap who knows absolutely everything about understanding things, which is something I'm awfully bad at. Now that's a pity because that was my only free day next week. Now, next Tuesday we could usefully think about - or is that the day I..."

The keening sound continued, in fact it grew, but it was so lightly borne upon the evening breeze that it still did not intrude itself on Khan's senses. The approaching light was so pale as to be indistinguishable from that of the moon which was bright that night.

"- so that's more or less the whole of March out," said Khan, "I'm afraid."

"April?" asked Ogdai, wearily. He idly whipped out a passing peasant's liver, but the joy had gone out of it. He flipped the thing listlessly off into the dark. A dog which had grown very fat over the years by the simple expedient of staying close to Ogdai at all times leapt on it. These were not pleasant times.

"Well no, April's out," said Khan - I'm going to Africa in April, that's one thing I had promised myself.

The light approaching them through the night sky had now at last attracted the attention of one or two other leading Mongols in the vicinity, who, wonderingly, stopped hitting each other and stabbing things and drew near.

"Look," said Ogdai, himself still unaware of what things were coming to pass, "can we please agree that we will conquer the world in May then?"

The mighty Khan sucked doubtfully on his teeth. "Well, I don't like to commit myself that far in advance. One feels so tied down if one's life is completely mapped out beforehand. I should be doing more reading, for heaven's sake, when am I going to find the time for that? Anyway -" he sighed and scratched at his scroll, "'May - possible conquest of the world ' . Now I've only pencilled that in, so don't regard it as absolutely definite - but keep on at me about it and we'll see how it goes. Hello, what's that?"

Slowly, with the grace of a beautiful woman stepping into a bath, a long slim silver craft lowered itself gently to the ground. Soft light streamed from it. From its opening doorway stepped a tall elegant creature with a curiously fine grey green complexion. It walked slowly towards them.

In its path lay the dark figure of a peasant who had been crying quietly to himself since he had watched his liver being eaten by Ogdai's dog and had known that no way was he going to get it back, and wondered how on Earth his poor wife was going to cope now. He chose this moment finally to pass on to better things.

The tall alien stepped over him with distaste and, though you would have had to read his face very closely to realise this, a little envy. He nodded briefly to each of the gathered Mongol leaders in turn, and pulled a small clipboard out from under his heavy metallic robe.

"Good evening," it said in a small weaselly voice, "my name is Wowbagger, also called the Infinitely Prolonged, I shall not trouble you with the reasons why. Greetings."

He turned and addressed the completely pop-eyed mighty Khan.

"You are Genghis Khan? Genghis Temüjin Khan, son of Yesügei?"

The diary scrolls slipped from Khan's hands to the ground. The pale luminesence from Wowbagger's ship suffused his wondering ravaged, careworn yellow features. As in a dream the mighty Emperor stepped forward in acknowledgment.

"Can I just check the spelling?" said the alien, showing him the clipboard, "I would hate to get it wrong at this stage and then have to start all over again, I really would."

Khan nodded faintly.

"Right number of aitches, then?" said the alien.

Again, the transfigured Emperor slightly inclined his face, while his eyes still boggled.

"Good," said Wowbagger, and made a little tick on his clipboard. He looked up. "Genghis Khan," he said, "you are a wanker; you are a tosspot; you are a very tiny piece of turd. Thank you." With that he retreated into his ship and flew off.

The was a nasty kind of silence.

Later that year Genghis Khan stormed into Europe in such a rage that he almost forgot to burn down Asia before he left.

The Essence Of Hinduism

The essence of Hinduism
By Shashi Tharoor (Under Sceretary United Nations)


Openness is the essence

"I cherish the diversity, the lack of compulsion, and the
richness of the various ways in which Hinduism is
practised eclectically."

The questions a candidate for public office has to answer
from the media can cover any subject, and intrusiveness is
difficult to resist. Still, I have been surprised with the
frequency with which, of late, journalists from Boston to
Berlin have expressed curiosity about my religious
beliefs. I tend to think of faith as something intensely
personal, not really a matter I feel any desire to parade
before the world. But, in an era where religion has sadly
become a source of division and conflict in so many
places, I had to concede that the question was a
legitimate one — especially after one of my rivals
specifically appealed for support on the grounds of his
religion.

Nature of faith

It's true, in my view, that faith can influence one's
conduct in one's career and life. For some, it's merely a
question of faith in themselves; for others, including me,
that sense of faith emerges from a faith in something
larger than ourselves. Faith is, at some level, what gives
you the courage to take the risks you must take, and
enables you to make peace with yourself when you suffer
the inevitable setbacks and calumnies that are the lot of
those who try to make a difference in the world.

So I have had no difficulty in saying openly that I am a
believing Hindu. But I am also quick to explain what that
phrase means to me. I'm not a "Hindu fundamentalist": I
see Hinduism as uniquely a religion without fundamentals.
We have an extraordinary diversity of religious practices
within Hinduism, a faith with no single sacred book but
many. Hinduism is, in many ways, predicated on the idea
that the eternal wisdom of the ages about divinity cannot
be confined to a single sacred book. We have no compulsory
injunctions or obligations. We do not even have a Hindu
Sunday, let alone a requirement to pray at specific times
and frequencies.

Unusual religion

What we have is a faith that allows each believer to reach
out his or her hands to his or her notion of the Godhead.
Hinduism is a faith which uniquely does not have any
notion of heresy — you cannot be a Hindu heretic
because there is no standard set of dogmas from which
deviation would make you a heretic.

So Hinduism is a faith so unusual that it is the only
major religion in the world that does not claim to be the
only true religion. I find that most congenial. For me, as
a believing Hindu, it is wonderful to be able to meet
people from other faiths without being burdened by the
conviction that I have embarked upon a "right path" that
they have somehow missed. I was brought up in the belief
that all ways of worship are equally valid. My father
prayed devoutly every day, but never used to oblige me to
join him: in the Hindu way, he wanted me to find my own
truth. And that I believe I have. It is a truth that
admits of the possibility that there might be other
truths. I therefore bring to the world an attitude that is
open, accommodating and tolerant of others' beliefs. Mine
is not a faith for those who seek certitudes, but there is
no better belief-system for an era of doubt and
uncertainty than a religion that cheerfully accommodates
both.

The misuse of religion for political purposes is of course
a sad, sometimes tragic, aspect of our contemporary
reality. As U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan once said,
the problem is never with the faith, but with the
faithful. All faiths strive sincerely to animate the
divine spark in each of us; but some of their followers,
alas, use their faith as a club to beat others with,
rather than a platform to raise themselves to the heavens.
Since Hinduism believes that there are various ways of
reaching the ultimate truth, the fact that adherents of my
faith, in a perversion of its tenets, have chosen to
destroy somebody else's sacred place, have attacked others
because of the absence of foreskin or the mark on a
forehead, is profoundly un-Hindu. I do not accept these
fanatics' interpretation of the values and principles of
my faith.

Divinity and the self

But what does it mean to me to be a practising Hindu? I
have never been particularly fond of visiting temples. I
do believe in praying everyday, even if it is only for a
couple of minutes. I have a little alcove at my home in
Manhattan, where I try to reach out to the holy spirit.
Yet, I believe in the Upanishadic doctrine that the divine
is essentially unknowable and unattainable by ordinary
mortals; all prayer is an attempt to reach out to that
which we cannot touch. While I have occasionally visited
temples, and I appreciate how important they are to my
mother and most other devout Hindus, I don't really
frequent them, because I believe that one does not need
any intermediaries between oneself and one's notion of the
divine. "Build Ram in your hearts" is what Hinduism has
always enjoined. If Ram is in your heart, it would matter
very little what bricks or stones Ram can also be found in.

Essential openness

So I take pride in the openness, the diversity, the range,
the lofty metaphysical aspirations of the Vedanta. I
cherish the diversity, the lack of compulsion, and the
richness of the various ways in which Hinduism is
practised eclectically. And I admire the civilisational
heritage of tolerance that made Hindu societies open their
arms to people of every other faith, to come and practise
their beliefs in peace amidst Hindus. It is remarkable,
for instance, that the only country on earth where the
Jewish people have lived for centuries and never
experienced a single episode of anti-Semitism is India.
That is the Hinduism in which I gladly take pride.
Openness is the essence of my faith. And that's the
perspective from which I would seek to serve in an office
which must belong equally to people of all faiths, beliefs
and creeds around the world.

The Donut Theory of The Universe - Scott Adams

A number of you asked me what I believe about the universe, given that I’ve ruled out God and I also have suspicions about evolution. That’s a revealing question because I think the real reason anyone believes anything is because uncertainty hurts. So we pick a side and rationalize it later. If there appear to be only two explanations, don’t you have to pick one or else forever be known as a waffling weenie?
Personally, I’m totally comfortable with a state of eternal confusion. It’s practically a lifestyle.
To backtrack for a moment, I don’t believe evolution is entirely false. I just think it smells a little finchy (nerd pun) and that we might be missing a big piece of the puzzle.
For example, maybe scientists will discover that the experience of a mother tends to activate or deactivate features in the unborn child’s DNA. So if, for example, the mother gives birth during an unusually cold winter, perhaps the baby has a bit more fat cells or a thicker fur coat on average. And perhaps that baby’s baby would retain that trait at least some of the time. That would be very different from the randomness of natural selection and still support the general notion of species changing over time. I’m not suggesting that this is true; it’s just an example to help you imagine that scientists could revise evolution in entirely scientific terms. It wouldn’t be the first time. Stephen J. Gould mixed things up too.
Today I will give you a thought experiment to help you imagine how the universe could be here just the way it is without God, evolution in its currently understood form, or aliens. I call it the Donut Theory and it goes like this:
Imagine an ant on a donut. The ant is running in a straight line from the outside of the donut toward the center. If he continues he will go through the center of the donut and end up exactly where he started.
Now imagine that the universe is the shape of the donut but we can’t see it that way because each of us is one ant running along a straight line. It’s impossible to see the whole thing.
This sort of a model has its limits and the analogy will fail more than a few times. But remember that Einstein described gravity as a bowling ball on a mattress. That analogy falls apart in many places too, but sometimes bad analogies are the best we have. So work with me here.
Now imagine that the ant isn’t a physical ant. He’s more like the control point on a computer program that is running. We imagine the control point as moving but in fact it’s more of a concept.
Now imagine that the donut is comprised of a frozen image of every event in your past and future in a straight line defined by the imaginary ant’s path. One ant-step ahead is an exact copy of you that has changed a tiny bit, and so on. To your left and right are copies of you that are just slightly different. You could call them other dimensions. Each has its own ant running toward the center of the donut.
When all of those realities reach the center of the donut, they become too tightly packed. There isn’t as much space as there is on the rim of the donut. And so, like a black hole, all of those realities are crushed into near nothingness before emerging out the other side. This hypothetical donut has a very tiny hole.
When all of the crushed bits emerge on the other side of that tiny hole, it’s the equivalent of the Big Bang. Everything seems to spring from a tiny point.
Nothing is moving in this model of the universe except the imaginary ant. Everything else is a still picture of various possibilities along the ant’s path. As the ant walks, he views these still pictures like frames of animation, and they seem like motion to him. But only the ant is truly moving.
In this analogy, the ant is your consciousness. It “moves” like the control of a program but without having physical form.
Now imagine your descendants along your ant’s straight line in what seems – by our human perception – to be millions of years from now. They know the universe will contract on itself, and all will be destroyed in a giant black hole, only to trigger the next Big Bang. Your descendants will want to preserve themselves. They will have millions of years to figure out how to send a program through the black hole that will recreate humans on the other side. It might take 15 billion years for that program to run, but only the simplest of programs could make it through the black hole. The program would be more like a seed made of nature’s building blocks, at a granularity we can’t yet imagine.
And so these geniuses of the future figure out how to send this “evolution” program through the black hole, to create humanity again, and in effect guarantee they are reborn in another 16 billion years or so when the ant comes back around.
That’s their world view. But if you could look at it from the outside – the God view – it would appear to be a bunch of still frames packed in a donut shape with a black hole in the center.
This model explains why the universe seems to be expanding and scientists don’t know why. It’s because we’ve recently (15 billion years ago) come through the donut hole and are heading toward the far edge of the donut where everything is roomy. Once we get to the far edge and reverse direction, the universe will seem to us that it is contracting. That’s when the scientists of the future will start working on their programming code to survive the black hole/big bang of the future.
This model also solves the problem of a causeless beginning. If God created the universe, who created God? If the Big Bang happened first, what caused the Big Bang?
In the Donut model, nothing is moving except our consciousness. And without movement of anything physical, time is nothing but an illusion. The question of what came first is meaningless.
The Donut theory also solves the problem of evolution apparently having a designer. Our future selves are the designers. We built ourselves.
This model also explains gravity. As we move toward the outside of the donut, each still frame is slightly larger than the one before. So it looks as if objects are moving toward each other but all that is happening is that each frame is occupying more space, so the relative empty distance between objects is shrinking. Gravity is an illusion, just like time and motion.
You could argue that the donut theory also allows for reincarnation. At the end of one set of still frames that include your life, your ant continues and picks up the next frame in the line, whoever that might be.
If you want to preserve your sense of free will, imagine that you can move your ant (your consciousness) to a neighboring path if you concentrate hard enough. Everything in a straight line is predetermined, but you can move your ant to experience a different path of predetermined realities. So in one line of reality you open a letter and it’s a bill. In another it’s a check.
Last but not least, the Donut Theory preserves the notion of God if you want to define Him as the shape of the Donut. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to describe the Donut’s shape as timeless, perfect, all knowing, all powerful, and outside of nature – since a shape is not a physical thing. That’s a bigger discussion but you can see how it would work.
And your ant – I called it your consciousness – isn’t a far stretch from what you might call a soul. So you can keep your soul too in this theory. You’re welcome.
Let me confess a million problems with this theory of the universe. But remember that every theory has holes. Scientists are baffled by all the so-called invisible dark matter. And the God theory would be a lot stronger if we could find that ark.
The point of the Donut Theory of the Universe is to help you imagine that there could be entirely different explanations for the universe. The model can’t go beyond being a tool for your imagination. No need to go all math and physics on my ass.
And don’t even start with me about spelling it “doughnut” with all of those unnecessary letters. We must band together to make “donut” the common usage. Otherwise life is meaningless.