Top 10 films of 2006
And most are not out in Singapore yet. Bah.
Really want to watch ones are
Pan's Labyrinth
Children of Men
The Queen
Why We Fight
Borat
Anyone wants to up?
Top 10 blogger babes
WTF is Xiaxue doing there? It's all photoshop I tell you!
Global warming is bullshit
After watching this and the Inconvenient Truth, you can't help but wonder how much of all these, from both sides is sensationalism, how much of it is bullshit, how much of it can we trust?
Reminds me of "Thank you for smoking". You can twist anything to suit your way.
Coming out of the elevator from B2 in Plaza Singapura, when I heard this woman exclaim
"Don't go in! It's going down!"
Finally caught this movie after a grand total of 0 people decided that they want to watch it.
IT'S A KOREAN DRAMA FFS! WHY DOESN'T ANYONE WANT TO WATCH IT?
But that is digressing. The feeling after watching this movies was mixed.
Wicked, Sick, Interesting, Crazy, Fucked Up! (in a good way), Fucked Up! (in a bad way), Mind Fucked.
SPOILERS START
Notice the numerous fucks there? Well seems the 2 leads were pretty intent on screwing every chance they got anyway.
But still it was interesting in the way the female lead was messing with the male lead (who for once, did not die of Kimchi poisoning). What was even more interesting was the way the male in turn messed with the female. And the deliberateness in which the story was cut.
SPOILERS END
It's not a show for everyone though, so be warned if you do want to catch it. I did find it very interesting though.
Army camps now rigorously check for camera phones. But they seem to have forgotten about checking for cameras themselves.
A friend asked me what DS in the Nintendo DS stands for. I thought it was Dual Screen, but apparently it issn't. In fact no one seems to know. Then it hit me. This was Nintendo's little secret (see what I did there?)
The DS stands for Damms Sony.
The whole handheld is called the Nintendo DS. Put the whole thing in and it starts to make sense. It reads Nintendo Damms Sony!
But wait! There's more. Nintendo then came out with the next handheld called the Nintendo DS lite.
Due to the Japanese propensity for pronouncing the letter "l" as "r" as in instead of
I'm so lonely.
I'm so ronery.
Time
Thought it was going to disappear into the abyss created by the Singapore censor board when it didn't appear in cinemas when it was supposed to, but now it seems to be back!
Anyone wants to up?
After the Iinconvenient Truth, I asked people to make their own conclusions.
This gives the other side of the coin.
So who is lying now?
Not the dour Grudge 2. Rather it's something much more sinister. It's The Inconvinient Truth, staring Al Gore (who as he so nicely puts it, was the next President of the United States)
But what's so horrifying about a documentary? I mean there are not ghost, no monsters or anything remotely terrifying.
Wrong. It's terrifying because it's real. Seeing the rise of carbon monoxide levels and consequently the tempreature levels is scary. Seeing whole glaciers gone is scary. Seeing the apathy of people is the worst. Seeing the current administration calling him a crazy environmentalist freak is mind blowing.
I couldn't tear my eyes off like in the best horror movies. I watched in rapt attention despite wanting to close my eyes and run away from it all. But I couldn't. It was helped that Al Gore has an obvious stage presence as well as good speaking ability plus he has done the presentation a thousand times at least.
All in all, it's a good watch. It wakes you up. It brings reality to you. It shows you the inconvinient truth.
But can you handle the truth?
is coming right up. Looking to see these shows. Anyone wanna up?
Barefoot 9 Nov 7.15pm Cathay Cineplex
Free Will 4 Nov 7.00pm Cathay Cineplex
Into Great Silence 10 Nov 7.00pm National Museum
Tough Enough 7 November 7.15pm Cathay Cineplex
Running on Empty 5 November 9.15 Cathay Cineplex
Summer in Berlin 6 November 7.15pm Cathay Cineplex
I've sinned. I watched another Scarlett Johansen show. And it was good (the show, but Johansen was scrumptious as well.)
I heard good reviews about the show not least from imdb which gave it an 8.2
I wasn't disappointed. Despite me classifying this as a Hollywood Blockbuster sort of movie, I was plesently surprised. Sure it had the useless love interests (Johansen), the suave men (Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman) and special effects (Tesla machines!), but the plot was sublime.
I thought I had it all figured out about 3/4 into the show, but it threw so many twist that in the end, everything just fit into place. It showcases the depths that man will go to, the insanities that he will perpetuate just to be able to tell another man "I won."
All in all, a throughly enjoying show.
4/5 stars + 1 for Scarlett with that oh so fletching look. :P
# unzip ; strip ; touch ; grep ; > finger ; mount ; fsck ; > more ; yes ; umount ; sleep
If you do use Linux and more specifically some debian based distro, then you would have heard about the news surrounding Firefox and Iceweasel (see the clever word play there?!)
But this post is not about that. I don't do news commentary, but if I did, it would probably be the best news commentary in the world. Or would Carlsbery be better.. *hmmmm*
Anyway, this post if more to highlight how creative photoshop skills and a sick and twisted sense of humour can lead to these:
to even this:
raymond: says:
uh
what's scoop?
i imdb
1 moment
7.1 nia
yux
then u still want to watch
hurhurhur
but there is scarlet "big boobs" johansen
dun like
hurhurhur
there's wolverine thou
and woody "my name is a slang for erect penis" allen
lol
and hugh "if you dare give me a nickname i'll slice and dice you" jackman
hurhurhur
woo blog worthy material
300
If you know your Greek history, this is one you will definately want to watch.
Birthday just passed. Received presents here and there.
But I realised that the present that I will always treasure the most would be the gift of literacy.
The ability to read Foxtrot, Calvin and Hobbes and laugh.
The ability to marvel at Sandman by Neil Gaiman.
The ability to be tickled by Terry Pratchet and Tom Holt.
The ability to wonder "What If?" by Harry Turtledove.
The ability to imagine with worlds gone by and yet to come, of lands near and far, of situations both possible and impossible.
Ah.. Bliss.
ultimate showdown
+1 for the Snakes on a plane reference
+1 for actually using Chuck Noris.
Geek boy heaven.
"band" last modified mp3 "index of" -html -htm -php -asp
replace "band" with the band you are searching for with quotes and place into google. Voila.
Shamelessly taken from American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I <3 Gaiman!
"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen-I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I
believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it." She stopped, out of breath.
Eh shiver me timbers, talk like a pirate day be in the horizon. Nar be caught with ye pants down.
View this booty!
Just read this comic the other day and I was so impressed by it, I'm going to recommend it to everyone.
It's a complilation of short comics written by various comic writters. The stories range from abstract (eh WTF?) to heartwarming.
Some of the ones that I really liked include
"Message in a Bottle" by Rodolphe Guenoden
A heartwarming story in which a guy sees a girl on a train feeling down. She's crying. He notices that her bag is left on the side, unwatched. He moves over, constantly eyeing the bag and seats on a seat behind her. While the girls is looking out of the window, he sneaks over and puts his hand into her bag.
The girl notices it and shrieks for help. A kind passenger grabs the boy and hits him. However the boy manages to escape when the train reaches the next station. The passenger goes back to see if the girl is ok and asks her if anything was stolen. The girl checkes her bag. Everything is there, and one additional thing.
A smiley face.
"So Far, So Close" by Bannister
A guy is sitting on a bus when he sees a girl. He looks at her, unable to take his eyes of him. She chances upon him looking at her, and smiles back. The guy, embarrased, turns away. A man comes in between them.
The boy is unhappy, unable to see the girl. He looks around the man, and sees the girl looking at him. The sunlight frames the girl giving her an angelic look. The boy is once again embarrased. When he next looks, he realises the girl is getting off at her stop.
When the bus leaves, they give each other a smile. They will probably never see each other again, but for that brief moment of time, they were connected.
I'm sure that has happened to most people in their life but to see it in pictures, was awesome.
Really recommend people to pick this up and take a look. It's a really interesting piece of work.
Next books I'm aiming for:
"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
"The Why Cafe" (also known as "Why are you here cafe") by John P. Strelecky [*anybody has it? Can lend it to me?*]
What I don't get is why the gahmen won't consider Singlish as a language onto itself.
You have British and American english, each with it's different spellings, use of words and phrases. You even have Australian english. So why not view Singlish as a language itself?
This means that while I can speak and use Singlish in informal situations, such as with friends, I will use proper English for serious stuff.
If the gahmen can actually seperate the 2, then there wouldn't be such a big hoo-hah and a need to stop people from speaking Singlish. In itself, I think Singlish is very much a part of our national identity and culture.
How do you identify a Singaporean overseas? Not neccessaryily by his clothes or mannerism, but once he opens his mouth to let out a "lah", you will immediately be able to identify with him.
With the gahmen so desperate to build up a Singaporean culture, and a "Uniquely Singaporean" image, there really should be a campaign to build up Singlish.
I am however not advocating Singlish instead of English. English has it's place and uses, not least in communicating with other people who do not know Singlish. But why must Singlish be viewed as a substitue, a replacement for English? Can't the 2 coexist side by side?
Is it just me, or do these look strangely phallic? Especially with those white strings coming out from the top. -_-
They're supposed to be bowling pins by the way.
No idea if that's good or not. And I only noticed because my colleague commented so.
Here's the story:
I get hungry very frequently, so I often have a mid-morning break at about 10am. In fact, I have it everyday. So much so that the canteen aunties know me and what I'll be ordering most of the time.
So much so that I get to cut the queue.
The counter is actually pretty long with the payment and ordering of drinks at one end, while the ordering of buns at the others. So what I normally do is, I order my buns before my drinks then pay for them together.
At first..
After a while the aunties told me to just go to the front of the queue and get my drink and pay for it since they claimed the buns would get cold if I had to wait for too long. And thus I get to jump all the way to the head of the queue. It pays to be nice to canteen aunties. :P
Finally got my new Liverpool jersey!
I'm really happy despite the face! :D
The good:
[Daiso] The first one was a IMM. This is the famous store where everything cost $2 and below. Also where the famous Dustbin Dude was born. And it's now coming to a nearer place the IMM, it's coming to Plaza Singapura!
The bad:
[Chai-La Angels] Thai movie. Nuff said.
Quite an eventful friday it was.
I wanted to catch a 6.40pm show for "Crazy Stone" at Plaza Singapura. Unfortunately a slow deployment for my application meant that I had to do OT and also meant I only finished work at 7pm.
So I had to catch the 9.10pm show instead. And although I bought my tickets at 8pm, I still only managed to get the front row seats. This lead to severe back pains and neck aches.
However I felt it was all worth it, because, Crazy Stone was really a good show, a must watch.
It had a pretty unbelievable plot with twist and turns that made good use of the inane characters and a really good exploration of "cause and effect" all the while having a great sense of humour.
Characters like the Master Theif who can never tell if someone is behind him. The trio of small time theives. The stressed security guard. Everyone mashed into one plot concerning real and fake jade pieces.
I would give it 5 stars but for the undeciperable Shanghainese slang. So 4.5 stars from me. Catch it before it stops showing!
Another good thing was I managed to finally eat at Carl's Junior.
And it was a terrific experience. They really have the best burgers around, much much better then Burger King, which to me is high praise indeed. It was expensive at about $11 a meal, but I'm still feeling the after effects of it now. Indeed some place that I will not hesistate to make a trip to another day.
And I still have IPPT tomorrow morning.. Wish me luck. If I can at least get a pass, then I'll be going to buy my Liverpool Jersey in the afternoon.
I'll be trumatised if that happened to me. And you can't even say for certain if the referee was taking bribes or not.
After much tribulations, I finally managed to catch Adam's Apples. After the rave reviews from Alex and Jean, it didn't disappoint me.
If you like "Thank you for smoking", this movie is for you. Combining comedy, moral stories and unbelievable characters, it was an enjoyable watch.
It wasn't exactly tear jerking, but your heart goes out to the characters, for the trial they had to go through and how the pulled through. Definately recommended to mainstream movies watchers. Catch it while you can, I don't think it'll be showing for much longer.
Next movie I'm aiming for, Sophie Scholl. Anyone interested?
On last count I was a fanboy of the various and managed to do them over the weekend.
[Subway] : Ate Subway Cut meal.
[Kate Beckinsale] : Watched Click.
[amaRok] : Used it to listen to mp3 for the weekend.
[Liverpool] : Liverpool won the Charity Shield and I watched it on TV. Plan to get a jersey next weekend.
[Simpang Bedok] : Woo! Maggie Goreng Mata Lembu + Milo Ice! Nuff said.
All in all a productive weekend.
College is basically a bunch of rooms where you sit for roughly two thousand hours and try to memorize things. The two thousand hours are spread out over four years; you spend the rest of the time sleeping and trying to get dates.
Basically, you learn two kinds of things in college:
1. Things you will need to know in later life (two hours).
2. Things you will not need to know in later life (1,998 hours). These are the things you learn in classes whose names end in -ology, -osophy, -istry, -ics, and so on. The idea is, you memorize these things, then write them down in little exam books, then forget them. If you fail to forget them, you become a professor and have to stay in college for the rest of your life.
It's very difficult to forget everything. For example, when I was in college, I had to memorize -- don't ask me why -- the names of three metaphysical poets other than John Donne. I have managed to forget one of them, but I still remember that the other two were named Vaughan and Crashaw. Sometimes, when I'm trying to remember something important like whether my wife told me to get tuna packed in oil or tuna packed in water, Vaughan and Crashaw just pop up in my mind, right there in the supermarket. It's a terrible waste of brain cells.
After you've been in college for a year or so, you're supposed to choose a major, which is the subject you intend to memorize and forget the most things about. Here is a very important piece of advice: be sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right Answers. This means you must not major in mathematics, physics, biology, or chemistry, because these subjects involve actual facts. If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer of the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with exactly the answer the professor has in mind, you fail. The same is true of chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you. He wants you to come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed on.
Scientists are extremely snotty about this.
So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, psychology, and sociology -- subjects in which nobody really understands what anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual facts. I attended classes in all these subjects, so I'll give you a quick overview of each:
ENGLISH: This involves writing papers about long books you have read little snippets of just before class. Here is a tip on how to get good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times. So in your paper, you say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland.
Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative. If you can regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you should major in English.
PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch. You should major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs.
PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams. Psychologists are obsessed with rats and dreams. I once spent an entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing. The rat learned much faster. My roommate is now a doctor. If you like rats or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, you should major in psychology.
SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: "Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior forms." If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large government grant.
Matt Simerson's Humour Pages
Oh well, it's that time of the year once again. 8th of August. National Day. (Also happens to be the birthday of a friend, an aunt [who was born on the exact day Singapore gained independance], and a friend's father)
So Happy birthday to everyone!
For a blog called crazyunicyclist, there issn't a lot about unicycles to my utter embarrasment. :P So this post will talk somewhat about it.
This year was pretty special, we had been asked to be part of the fringe celebrations of this year's NDP. We came up with a tournament that was to be played today. It wasn't bad, but the playing ground was very narrow (5 meters) which called for new playing methods and tactics.
Due to the barriers at the side and narrow playing area, it was now easier to just rebound the ball along the side then try to dribble past a player. Also due to the number of players a turnover was very devastating if there wasn't a defender around. Tough lessons learnt during my first match.
My teams' result
World's Most Dangerous Comic
*I wonder what he did in England, Ireland and Scotland.
If anyone was wondering about the lack of posts, it was due to my motherboard dying on me.
What happened was that the CPU fan was clogged with dust and would not turn. This caused the fan to short out, which in turn led to the motherboard getting shorted out. I only realised this when my computer kept turning off by itself. Oh well.
But sadly, this has set my back quite a bit (285) and thus my hopes of getting a Nintendo DS lite has to be put on hold till I get my next pay packet.
What was infuriating was the way the repair shop tried to cheat me of my money. They wanted to charge $150 for installing a 80gb (which cost $85, meaning they wanted to charge an additional $65!!). When I asked them why did it cost so much, they said it was because of configuration issues. Er what configuration? The most that was needed would be formatting the harddisk. Probing further got me to "We'll do backup of your data for you just in case anythign happens!"
Well, my data is on my old harddisk. In what way would it be in danger?
They also wanted to charge an additional $30 for configuring my software due to the new motherboard! OMG!
So what happened was that I told them I'll do the config myself. And guess what?
When I got my comp back, Windows was pretty much configured for the new motherboard although the onboard LAN was not turned on. A simple turning it on and resetting my static IP address was enough to get it up and running. They actually configured it for me when they had to test if the new motherboard was working I guess.
And the harddisk was also formatted already. So yah, I think they thought that I had no idea what was happening and tried to leech me of my hard earned cash. Bleh~!
Joke time: (In reference to my title :P)
Arnold, Sylvester and Bruce Willis were asked to act in a movie showcasing classic composers. They were given a choice on which composer they would play.
Bruce thought about it and said, "I've always admired Chopin, so I'll play Chopin!"
Sylvester also thought about it and said, "Hmmm, I like listening to Beethovon, so I guess I want Beethovon."
Now everybody looked at Arnie, wondering who he would choose.
At which Arnie said, "I'll be Bach!"
Shamelessly ripped from Sandman:
Delirium: What is the name for the precise moment when you 've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago?
Answer (highlight to see) : Mercy
OMFG! I love Sandman!
Are you tired of all those sissy "friendship" poems that always sound
good, but never actually come close to reality? Well, here is a series
of promises that really speaks to true friendship:
(1) When you are sad - I will help get you drunk and plot revenge
against the son of a bitch who made you sad.
(2) When you are blue - I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.
(3) When you smile - I will smile, knowing you finally got laid.
(4) When you are scared - I will rag on you about it every chance I get.
(5) When you are worried - I will tell you horrible stories about how
much worse it could be and to quit whining.
(6) When you are confused - I will use small words.
(7) When you are sick - I will stay the hell away from you until you are
well again. I don't want whatever you have!
(8) When you fall - I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass.
This is my oath to you my friend, I pledge it till the end. Why, you may ask?
Because you are my friend.
Remember: A good friend will help you move. A really good friend will
help you move a body. Let me know if I ever need to bring a shovel.
Shamelessly ripped from here
Who needs enemies when you have friends?
From www.joystiq.com
sidenote: anyone looking to get a Nintendo DS lite? Then we can have multiplayer!
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is just give up!
As seen by various people
I'll still like to throw by support behind Zizou. I'm not saying what he did was right, but the magical moments that he has given us all over the years are just too much.
Allez, Allez, Zizou!
I watched "Thankyou for Smoking" the other day and after some thinking, realised some stuff.
*SPOILERS*
For a show that is about smoking, there is a distinct lack of people smoking in the show itself. The only 2 people I could distinctly remember smoking was the soldier in the old flim and Captain, the boss of the Big Tobacco. And guess what? The soldier was shot while Captain died of a heart attack.
Sublimal messaging? Hmmm..
Well at least the main character lived because he smoked, but not once in the whole movie did I recall him smoking.
*SPOILERS*
EDIT:
According to IMDB:
From IMDB trivia:
No one is shown smoking a cigarette throughout the entire movie.
As such, I recall slightly better that the soldier did not smoke, he took one out but was shot before he could take a puff and Captain did not smoke, but was drinking quite a bit.
...are at the pearly gates of heaven, when St. Peter opens the gate. He turns to Figo and asks "Why do you deserve eternal happiness in Heaven my son?"
Figo replies "I am an artist; I inspire young people to be great footballers, and in turn take them away from a life of crime." St. Peter nods, impressed.
He turns to Ronaldo and asks the same question. Ronaldo retorts "When I play football I treat everyone as an equal, I see no ethnic or racial divides. The boy from Rio is the same as the superstar from Madrid."
Once again St. Peter is impressed, and nods. Next he turns to Lampard, and says......
"I suppose you are looking for your ball back?"
Kudos to Jiahui for this idea. Should try to sell it at the commencement alongside the people trying to sell the photos and other stuff.
Anyway, I've reached another stage in my life. Commencement. The begining of a new era. The result of countless years of studies (maths issn't my strong point). Some people feel overwhelmed. Strangely, I kind of feel devoid of emotion. It doesn't really seem to matter to me. It's just a degree. Ping any random IP address on the Internet and you'll get a reply from a graduate's IP address.
Made some mistakes during university life, but they're all lessons in life and I do feel richer for it. The ups and downs, the highs and lows, the bitching and moaning, the joys and laughter. It is a period in life that I will always remember. Thanks to all those who supported me and gave me strength, I want to dedicate this t-shirt to everyone who helped me survive university!
You never cared, so don't act like I mean anything to you now.
Were wastepaper bins made to fit the normal plastic bags or were plastic bags made that size to fit the wastepaper bins?
Answers on the back of rubbish.
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Caught “King and the Clown” recently with a friend (oooo another arty and gay film o_O) and came up with some more things to ponder.
When is the line between being really good friends, even “brothers”, to being gay. Because the film did cause some disagreement. I felt that it could be interpreted that the 2 clowns weren’t actually gay, just really good friends, willing to die for each other. Just because one happened to be a really androgynous male (ok who am I kidding. He was just too feminine) doesn’t mean the relationship that they shared was gay.
I mean if both had been hard, Rambo type alpha males, then there wouldn’t be this discussion in the first place. Of course, if it had been 2 alpha males then it would have been called “DIE HARD: RAMBO EDITION: WITH SPECIAL APPEARANCE FROM TERMINATOR! PART X” with the body count leapfrogging over the no of people who died since the beginning of time.
But that’s digressing. When is the line crossed? There was no sex (or at least none showed) between the 2 guys. There was no kissing. Nothing. And yet people are jumping to call the 2 of them gay. People are calling this movie the Korean “Brokeback Mountain”
And for what? Because one guy looked like a female? Are we making a simple mistake of judging a book by its cover?
Think I'm semi over it. But I don't think I ever want to see her again. It still hurts too much. Did I ever mean anything to her?
itsp: if you ever go into using a web cam, just make sure it doesn't turn out like this..
Went to catch C.R.A.Z.Y (henceforth know as CRAZY) and twas pretty good. That's one thing I really like about foreign flims. The distributors tend to bring in only the good ones.
Another thing is that there is often a lack of special visual effects and computer generated chase sequences and such. And that often forces the show to actually have a story (*gasp!*) and focus on character development and not some mindless car chase.
This particular movie was cool. I'm not going to give major spoilers in case some of you guys still want to catch it.
However there was one thing about the show that I wanted to talk about, as such spoiler ahead.
*SPOILERS START* (highlight to read)
The shows about a guy who finds out he's gay. He's father is not particularly pleased about it and the show goes on about how their lives go on and the father eventually accepting his son for who he is. More importantly, it shows how to guy tries so hard to deny his own sexuality but eventually accepts it as well.
*SPOILERS END*
What's interesting is that just days after I do a post on gay comic superheros, I catch a movie about a gay. (I swear I had no idea it was about a gay.) Some higher power indicating I should be gay? :P
Then after the show, I saw not 1 but 3 gays (not confirmed, but 1 looked like a transexual and the other 2 were holding on to each other) on the way home.
So maybe I would want to take the comment back about Singaporeans not being able to handle gays. There are comic books with gay superheros in them in the NATIONAL LIBRARY, a movie about a gay being shown and gays walking around openly. Maybe it was I who was the closed minded one.
Because despite everything, when I saw the gays, my first thought was "Oh bloody hell, more faggots!" Desperately ashamed of myself now. Despite preaching about open mindedness in my previous post, I was still unable to shake it away from myself. I still had some deep distrust(?) and hatred(?) towards them. I have to constantly and conciously remind myself that they are just like me, human beings.
----------------------------------------------
With all these trends about gays suddenly coming into my life, I did wonder if it was a sign I should turn gay. Which lead to further thoughts. How much of it is in the upbringing and how much of it is in the genes? Would I be able to turn gay now if I wanted to? Somehow the taught of "doing" it to a guy is just such a total turn off to me. And from what I know, it's the same for gays. The thought of doing it to a girl just turns them off.
So is it possible for a guy to just turn gay and a gay to just turn back to straight? How much is it due to the genes.
Read another comic the other day. This one was showcasing the Teen Titans which included the new Superboy. He was a clone and then he discovered that 50% of the genes was from Superman and the other 50% was from Lex Luthor (villian extraordinaire). It got him worried. He was worried that one day, the Lex Luthor genes will cause him to go rouge and make him hurt people and generally go bad. He desperately wanted to avoid that issue and didn't want to believe it. I'm not sure how he deals with it in the end as was left unsaid.
So how much of one's behaviour is down to genes and how much of it is down to upbringing? Would a clone of Hitler turn out to be the same dictator? Or would a caring family, the lack of WWI and other events cause him to be the artist that he hoped to be?
Something to ponder on I hope.
A long 6 year wait?
Remember Jenny Quantum that I talked about a few posts back?
Well, I've been reading quite a few comics on "The Authority" lately and guess what I found out?
Her foster parents are Apollo and Midnighter.
 |  |
Apollo: Powers include all powers that Superman has | Midnighter: Powers include all powers that Batman has |
Perhaps the craziest of the time travel paradoxes was cooked up by Robert Heinlein in his classic short story "All You Zombies."
A baby girl is mysteriously dropped off at an orphanage in Cleveland in 1945. "Jane" grows up lonely and dejected, not knowing who her parents are, until one day in 1963 she is strangely attracted to a drifter. She falls in love with him. But just when things are finally looking up for Jane, a series of disasters strike. First, she becomes pregnant by the drifter, who then disappears. Second, during the complicated delivery, doctors find that Jane has both sets of sex organs, and to save her life, they are forced to surgically convert "her" to a "him." Finally, a mysterious stranger kidnaps her baby from the delivery room.
Reeling from these disasters, rejected by society, scorned by fate, "he" becomes a drunkard and drifter. Not only has Jane lost her parents and her lover, but he has lost his only child as well. Years later, in 1970, he stumbles into a lonely bar, called Pop's Place, and spills out his pathetic story to an elderly bartender. The sympathetic bartender offers the drifter the chance to avenge the stranger who left her pregnant and abandoned, on the condition that he join the "time travelers corps." Both of them enter a time machine, and the bartender drops off the drifter in 1963. The drifter is strangely attracted to a young orphan woman, who subsequently becomes pregnant.
The bartender then goes forward 9 months, kidnaps the baby girl from the hospital, and drops off the baby in an orphanage back in 1945. Then the bartender drops off the thoroughly confused drifter in 1985, to enlist in the time travelers corps. The drifter eventually gets his life together, becomes a respected and elderly member of the time travelers corps, and then disguises himself as a bartender and has his most difficult mission: a date with destiny, meeting a certain drifter at Pop's Place in 1970.
Sorry for the lack of updates. Just been generally down, moody and extremely anti-social lately.
Things have happened in my life which have lead it to spiral out of control. I want to take a step back and have a time-out from life. Unfortunately, that's not always possible.
Thanks for the concern from everyone, and sorry for my behaviour.
I just need more time to get over stuff. In the mean time put up with the sullen me.
Hi everyone,
I hope everyone's doing well. This mail is long but very important (for not only me). Please read it carefully and help support me at http://www.supportsid.com/ .
As some of you know I had planned to ride down India for charity(Oxfam) last year. Unfortunately, I hurt my leg and I had to let it go for the time being. You guys probably know too that I am currently in Australia doing a course in Sports & Outdoor Rec. With all these qualifications I plan to do various trips involving climbing, trekking and of course, unicycling for various humanitarian, environmental and peace projects.
The Pole to Pole Leadership Institute is an organization that aims to empower the youth of today by involving themselves in various projects (humanitarian and environamental) and epic adventures. In 2000, they picked a few people from around the globe and this team travelled from the North to the South Pole. Now its time for another journey. The Institute is selecting paritipants for the first ever human powered pole to pole crossing. They will start at the South Pole this November and will ski, walk, cycle, sail and kayak all the way to the North Pole. Along the way they will be involved in various environmental and humanitarian projects. As you can see, this journey is exactly what I want to do. Furthermore, to do what I want to do requires a lot of support (especially financial) since a lot of my future projects need a lot of cash and I of course, need people to donate to my causes. Building up my credentials will take a lot of time. But if I do get selected for the Pole to Pole expedition, apart from fulfilling my dreams of skiing to the poles, I will also be left with a solid foundation and support base to continue with my work- adventure challenges for a good cause. Hence, it is imperative I get selected.
One of my goals is to unicycle from Delhi in India to Lahore in Pakistan for peace. As some of you may know these two countries are constantly fighting. They have already fought three wars and are now nuclear armed. This effects everybody. Their battleground is Kashmir, one of the both beautiful places on earth. Hence, this fighting must be stopped. But to accomplish this journey I need permission from both governments. By doing the Pole to Pole expedition I will have the support of many people. Hence, together we can exert pressure on both governments to stop fighting. And will ride between these two historical cities for peace. Of course, in the future I will do many more projects for peace and other humantarian and enviromental causes. In fact, in the future I will be doing a few projects in Singapore too. This ride will also be promoting unicycling as a sport and that effects you too.
So, what can you do? I have a website http://www.supportsid.com/ . All you need to do is to click on the "students support" button and enter your details. It takes 30 seconds.By signing up you are voicing your support for me.Once I am selected for the Pole to Pole training camp in Canada, I will take the names of all the people who have supported me and show them how much support I will bring along with me. Hence, please support me. It takes 30 seconds.
What more can you do? Please spread the word. The Pole to Pole expedition effects many countries and my future plans do too. This effects everybody. Also my goals are to promote the sport of unicycling.When I ride, I won't be wearing a clown's suit..Hence, this effects you in more ways than one.Hence, please sign up and get yoyr friends and classmates to do so. This signup thing is mostly for students but young adults may also sign.
One of the requirements of the Pole to Pole application is to raise cash. I cannot ask students to give me cash. That's why I've created the student signup. The minimum donation is 25US$. I would be very grateful if any of you working guys made a donation. You need to go here https://secure2.convio.net/ptp/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=1022&PROXY_ID=1017542&PROXY_TYPE=20&FR_ID=1030
This will mean you become an official part of my support team. If you want to donate but don't have that much cash (I know, 25US$ is a lot) you can combine your cash with other poeple with the same intentions and make 1 donation. Every person counts.
Please spread the word and get as many students and young folk to sign up. You can take a look at the Pole to Pole website for more info at http://www.poletopoleleadership.com/site/PageServer?pagename=homepage
If any of you think you might want to be an applicant like me, contact me. I can help you with your application. Thanks.
Btw, great job on the national day event. Fangie invited me too but I won't be able to make it. Anyway I suck at hockey now. Haven't played in ages.The Melbourne guys are more trials and muni. In fact, I'll be going for the Chiltern Muni weekend this week.
Later,
Thanks,
Sid
So, there's a man crawling through the desert.
He'd decided to try his SUV in a little bit of cross-country travel, had
great fun zooming over the badlands and through the sand, got lost, hit a
big rock, and then he couldn't get it started again. There were no cell
phone towers anywhere near, so his cell phone was useless. He had no family,
his parents had died a few years before in an auto accident, and his few
friends had no idea he was out here.
He stayed with the car for a day or so, but his one bottle of water ran out
and he was getting thirsty. He thought maybe he knew the direction back, now
that he'd paid attention to the sun and thought he'd figured out which way
was north, so he decided to start walking. He figured he only had to go
about 30 miles or so and he'd be back to the small town he'd gotten gas in
last.
He thinks about walking at night to avoid the heat and sun, but based upon
how dark it actually was the night before, and given that he has no
flashlight, he's afraid that he'll break a leg or step on a rattlesnake. So,
he puts on some sun block, puts the rest in his pocket for reapplication
later, brings an umbrella he'd had in the back of the SUV with him to give
him a little shade, pours the windshield wiper fluid into his water bottle
in case he gets that desperate, brings his pocket knife in case he finds a
cactus that looks like it might have water in it, and heads out in the
direction he thinks is right.
He walks for the entire day. By the end of the day he's really thirsty. He's
been sweating all day, and his lips are starting to crack. He's reapplied
the sunblock twice, and tried to stay under the umbrella, but he still feels
sunburned. The windshield wiper fluid sloshing in the bottle in his pocket
is really getting tempting now. He knows that it's mainly water and some
ethanol and coloring, but he also knows that they add some kind of poison to
it to keep people from drinking it. He wonders what the poison is, and
whether the poison would be worse than dying of thirst.
He pushes on, trying to get to that small town before dark.
By the end of the day he starts getting worried. He figures he's been
walking at least 3 miles an hour, according to his watch for over 10 hours.
That means that if his estimate was right that he should be close to the
town. But he doesn't recognize any of this. He had to cross a dry creek bed
a mile or two back, and he doesn't remember coming through it in the SUV. He
figures that maybe he got his direction off just a little and that the dry
creek bed was just off to one side of his path. He tells himself that he's
close, and that after dark he'll start seeing the town lights over one of
these hills, and that'll be all he needs.
As it gets dim enough that he starts stumbling over small rocks and things,
he finds a spot and sits down to wait for full dark and the town lights.
Full dark comes before he knows it. He must have dozed off. He stands back
up and turns all the way around. He sees nothing but stars.
He wakes up the next morning feeling absolutely lousy. His eyes are gummy
and his mouth and nose feel like they're full of sand. He so thirsty that he
can't even swallow. He barely got any sleep because it was so cold. He'd
forgotten how cold it got at night in the desert and hadn't noticed it the
night before because he'd been in his car.
He knows the Rule of Threes - three minutes without air, three days without
water, three weeks without food - then you die. Some people can make it a
little longer, in the best situations. But the desert heat and having to
walk and sweat isn't the best situation to be without water. He figures,
unless he finds water, this is his last day.
He rinses his mouth out with a little of the windshield wiper fluid. He
waits a while after spitting that little bit out, to see if his mouth goes
numb, or he feels dizzy or something. Has his mouth gone numb? Is it just in
his mind? He's not sure. He'll go a little farther, and if he still doesn't
find water, he'll try drinking some of the fluid.
Then he has to face his next, harder question - which way does he go from
here? Does he keep walking the same way he was yesterday (assuming that he
still knows which way that is), or does he try a new direction? He has no
idea what to do.
Looking at the hills and dunes around him, he thinks he knows the direction
he was heading before. Just going by a feeling, he points himself somewhat
to the left of that, and starts walking.
As he walks, the day starts heating up. The desert, too cold just a couple
of hours before, soon becomes an oven again. He sweats a little at first,
and then stops. He starts getting worried at that - when you stop sweating
he knows that means you're in trouble - usually right before heat stroke.
He decides that it's time to try the windshield wiper fluid. He can't wait
any longer - if he passes out, he's dead. He stops in the shade of a large
rock, takes the bottle out, opens it, and takes a mouthful. He slowly
swallows it, making it last as long as he can. It feels so good in his dry
and cracked throat that he doesn't even care about the nasty taste. He takes
another mouthful, and makes it last too. Slowly, he drinks half the bottle.
He figures that since he's drinking it, he might as well drink enough to
make some difference and keep himself from passing out.
He's quit worrying about the denaturing of the wiper fluid. If it kills him,
it kills him - if he didn't drink it, he'd die anyway. Besides, he's pretty
sure that whatever substance they denature the fluid with is just designed
to make you sick - their way of keeping winos from buying cheap wiper fluid
for the ethanol content. He can handle throwing up, if it comes to that.
He walks. He walks in the hot, dry, windless desert. Sand, rocks, hills,
dunes, the occasional scrawny cactus or dried bush. No sign of water.
Sometimes he'll see a little movement to one side or the other, but whatever
moved is usually gone before he can focus his eyes on it. Probably birds,
lizards, or mice. Maybe snakes, though they usually move more at night. He's
careful to stay away from the movements.
After a while, he begins to stagger. He's not sure if it's fatigue, heat
stroke finally catching him, or maybe he was wrong and the denaturing of the
wiper fluid was worse than he thought. He tries to steady himself, and keep
going.
After more walking, he comes to a large stretch of sand. This is good! He
knows he passed over a stretch of sand in the SUV - he remembers doing
donuts in it. Or at least he thinks he remembers it - he's getting woozy
enough and tired enough that he's not sure what he remembers any more or if
he's hallucinating. But he thinks he remembers it. So he heads off into it,
trying to get to the other side, hoping that it gets him closer to the town.
He was heading for a town, wasn't he? He thinks he was. He isn't sure any
more. He's not even sure how long he's been walking any more. Is it still
morning? Or has it moved into afternoon and the sun is going down again? It
must be afternoon - it seems like it's been too long since he started out.
He walks through the sand.
After a while, he comes to a big dune in the sand. This is bad. He doesn't
remember any dunes when driving over the sand in his SUV. Or at least he
doesn't think he remembers any. This is bad.
But, he has no other direction to go. Too late to turn back now. He figures
that he'll get to the top of the dune and see if he can see anything from
there that helps him find the town. He keeps going up the dune.
Halfway up, he slips in the bad footing of the sand for the second or third
time, and falls to his knees. He doesn't feel like getting back up - he'll
just fall down again. So, he keeps going up the dune on his hand and knees.
While crawling, if his throat weren't so dry, he'd laugh. He's finally
gotten to the hackneyed image of a man lost in the desert - crawling through
the sand on his hands and knees. If would be the perfect image, he imagines,
if only his clothes were more ragged. The people crawling through the desert
in the cartoons always had ragged clothes. But his have lasted without any
rips so far. Somebody will probably find his dessicated corpse half buried
in the sand years from now, and his clothes will still be in fine shape -
shake the sand out, and a good wash, and they'd be wearable again. He wishes
his throat were wet enough to laugh. He coughs a little instead, and it
hurts.
He finally makes it to the top of the sand dune. Now that he's at the top,
he struggles a little, but manages to stand up and look around. All he sees
is sand. Sand, and more sand. Behind him, about a mile away, he thinks he
sees the rocky ground he left to head into this sand. Ahead of him, more
dunes, more sand. This isn't where he drove his SUV. This is Hell. Or close
enough.
Again, he doesn't know what to do. He decides to drink the rest of the wiper
fluid while figuring it out. He takes out the bottle, and is removing the
cap, when he glances to the side and sees something. Something in the sand.
At the bottom of the dune, off to the side, he sees something strange. It's
a flat area, in the sand. He stops taking the cap of the bottle off, and
tries to look closer. The area seems to be circular. And it's dark - darker
than the sand. And, there seems to be something in the middle of it, but he
can't tell what it is. He looks as hard as he can, and still can tell from
here. He's going to have to go down there and look.
He puts the bottle back in his pocket, and starts to stumble down the dune.
After a few steps, he realizes that he's in trouble - he's not going to be
able to keep his balance. After a couple of more sliding, tottering steps,
he falls and starts to roll down the dune. The sand it so hot when his body
hits it that for a minute he thinks he's caught fire on the way down - like
a movie car wreck flashing into flames as it goes over the cliff, before it
ever even hits the ground. He closes his eyes and mouth, covers his face
with his hands, and waits to stop rolling.
He stops, at the bottom of the dune. After a minute or two, he finds enough
energy to try to sit up and get the sand out of his face and clothes. When
he clears his eyes enough, he looks around to make sure that the dark spot
in the sand it still there and he hadn't just imagined it.
So, seeing the large, flat, dark spot on the sand is still there, he begins
to crawl towards it. He'd get up and walk towards it, but he doesn't seem to
have the energy to get up and walk right now. He must be in the final stages
of dehydration he figures, as he crawls. If this place in the sand doesn't
have water, he'll likely never make it anywhere else. This is his last
chance.
He gets closer and closer, but still can't see what's in the middle of the
dark area. His eyes won't quite focus any more for some reason. And lifting
his head up to look takes so much effort that he gives up trying. He just
keeps crawling.
Finally, he reaches the area he'd seen from the dune. It takes him a minute
of crawling on it before he realizes that he's no longer on sand - he's now
crawling on some kind of dark stone. Stone with some kind of marking on it -
a pattern cut into the stone. He's too tired to stand up and try to see what
the pattern is - so he just keeps crawling. He crawls towards the center,
where his blurry eyes still see something in the middle of the dark stone
area.
His mind, detached in a strange way, notes that either his hands and knees
are so burnt by the sand that they no longer feel pain, or that this dark
stone, in the middle of a burning desert with a pounding, punishing sun
overhead, doesn't seem to be hot. It almost feels cool. He considers lying
down on the nice cool surface.
Cool, dark stone. Not a good sign. He must be hallucinating this. He's
probably in the middle of a patch of sand, already lying face down and
dying, and just imagining this whole thing. A desert mirage. Soon the
beautiful women carrying pitchers of water will come up and start giving him
a drink. Then he'll know he's gone.
He decides against laying down on the cool stone. If he's going to die here
in the middle of this hallucination, he at least wants to see what's in the
center before he goes. He keeps crawling.
It's the third time that he hears the voice before he realizes what he's
hearing. He would swear that someone just said, "Greetings, traveler. You do
not look well. Do you hear me?"
He stops crawling. He tries to look up from where he is on his hands and
knees, but it's too much effort to lift his head. So he tries something
different - he leans back and tries to sit up on the stone. After a few
seconds, he catches his balance, avoids falling on his face, sits up, and
tries to focus his eyes. Blurry. He rubs his eyes with the back of his hands
and tries again. Better this time.
Yep. He can see. He's sitting in the middle of a large, flat, dark expanse
of stone. Directly next to him, about three feet away, is a white post or
pole about two inches in diameter and sticking up about four or five feet
out of the stone, at an angle.
And wrapped around this white rod, tail with rattle on it hovering and
seeming to be ready to start rattling, is what must be a fifteen foot long
desert diamondback rattlesnake, looking directly at him.
He stares at the snake in shock. He doesn't have the energy to get up and
run away. He doesn't even have the energy to crawl away. This is it, his
final resting place. No matter what happens, he's not going to be able to
move from this spot.
Well, at least dying of a bite from this monster should be quicker than
dying of thirst. He'll face his end like a man. He struggles to sit up a
little straighter. The snake keeps watching him. He lifts one hand and waves
it in the snake's direction, feebly. The snake watches the hand for a
moment, then goes back to watching the man, looking into his eyes.
Hmmm. Maybe the snake had no interest in biting him? It hadn't rattled yet -
that was a good sign. Maybe he wasn't going to die of snake bite after all.
He then remembers that he'd looked up when he'd reached the center here
because he thought he'd heard a voice. He was still very woozy - he was
likely to pass out soon, the sun still beat down on him even though he was
now on cool stone. He still didn't have anything to drink. But maybe he had
actually heard a voice. This stone didn't look natural. Nor did that white
post sticking up out of the stone. Someone had to have built this. Maybe
they were still nearby. Maybe that was who talked to him. Maybe this snake
was even their pet, and that's why it wasn't biting.
He tries to clear his throat to say, "Hello," but his throat is too dry. All
that comes out is a coughing or wheezing sound. There is no way he's going
to be able to talk without something to drink. He feels his pocket, and the
bottle with the wiper fluid is still there. He shakily pulls the bottle out,
almost losing his balance and falling on his back in the process. This isn't
good. He doesn't have much time left, by his reckoning, before he passes
out.
He gets the lid off of the bottle, manages to get the bottle to his lips,
and pours some of the fluid into his mouth. He sloshes it around, and then
swallows it. He coughs a little. His throat feels better. Maybe he can talk
now.
He tries again. Ignoring the snake, he turns to look around him, hoping to
spot the owner of this place, and croaks out, "Hello? Is there anyone here?"
He hears, from his side, "Greetings. What is it that you want?"
He turns his head, back towards the snake. That's where the sound had seemed
to come from. The only thing he can think of is that there must be a
speaker, hidden under the snake, or maybe built into that post. He decides
to try asking for help.
"Please," he croaks again, suddenly feeling dizzy, "I'd love to not be
thirsty any more. I've been a long time without water. Can you help me?"
Looking in the direction of the snake, hoping to see where the voice was
coming from this time, he is shocked to see the snake rear back, open its
mouth, and speak. He hears it say, as the dizziness overtakes him and he
falls forward, face first on the stone, "Very well. Coming up."
A piercing pain shoots through his shoulder. Suddenly he is awake. He sits
up and grabs his shoulder, wincing at the throbbing pain. He's momentarily
disoriented as he looks around, and then he remembers - the crawl across the
sand, the dark area of stone, the snake. He sees the snake, still wrapped
around the tilted white post, still looking at him.
He reaches up and feels his shoulder, where it hurts. It feels slightly wet.
He pulls his fingers away and looks at them - blood. He feels his shoulder
again - his shirt has what feels like two holes in it - two puncture holes -
they match up with the two aching spots of pain on his shoulder. He had been
bitten. By the snake.
"It'll feel better in a minute." He looks up - it's the snake talking. He
hadn't dreamed it. Suddenly he notices - he's not dizzy any more. And more
importantly, he's not thirsty any more - at all!
"Have I died? Is this the afterlife? Why are you biting me in the
afterlife?"
"Sorry about that, but I had to bite you," says the snake. "That's the way I
work. It all comes through the bite. Think of it as natural medicine."
"You bit me to help me? Why aren't I thirsty any more? Did you give me a
drink before you bit me? How did I drink enough while unconscious to not be
thirsty any more? I haven't had a drink for over two days. Well, except for
the windshield wiper fluid... hold it, how in the world does a snake talk?
Are you real? Are you some sort of Disney animation?"
"No," says the snake, "I'm real. As real as you or anyone is, anyway. I
didn't give you a drink. I bit you. That's how it works - it's what I do. I
bite. I don't have hands to give you a drink, even if I had water just
sitting around here."
The man sat stunned for a minute. Here he was, sitting in the middle of the
desert on some strange stone that should be hot but wasn't, talking to a
snake that could talk back and had just bitten him. And he felt better. Not
great - he was still starving and exhausted, but much better - he was no
longer thirsty. He had started to sweat again, but only slightly. He felt
hot, in this sun, but it was starting to get lower in the sky, and the cool
stone beneath him was a relief he could notice now that he was no longer
dying of thirst.
"I might suggest that we take care of that methanol you now have in your
system with the next request," continued the snake. "I can guess why you
drank it, but I'm not sure how much you drank, or how much methanol was left
in the wiper fluid. That stuff is nasty. It'll make you go blind in a day or
two, if you drank enough of it."
"Ummm, n-next request?" said the man. He put his hand back on his hurting
shoulder and backed away from the snake a little.
"That's the way it works. If you like, that is," explained the snake. "You
get three requests. Call them wishes, if you wish." The snake grinned at his
own joke, and the man drew back a little further from the show of fangs.
"But there are rules," the snake continued. "The first request is free. The
second requires an agreement of secrecy. The third requires the binding of
responsibility." The snake looks at the man seriously.
"By the way," the snake says suddenly, "my name is Nathan. Old Nathan,
Samuel used to call me. He gave me the name. Before that, most of the Bound
used to just call me 'Snake'. But that got old, and Samuel wouldn't stand
for it. He said that anything that could talk needed a name. He was big into
names. You can call me Nate, if you wish." Again, the snake grinned. "Sorry
if I don't offer to shake, but I think you can understand - my shake sounds
somewhat threatening." The snake give his rattle a little shake.
"Umm, my name is Jack," said the man, trying to absorb all of this. "Jack
Samson.
"Can I ask you a question?" Jack says suddenly. "What happened to the
poison...umm, in your bite. Why aren't I dying now? How did you do that?
What do you mean by that's how you work?"
"That's more than one question," grins Nate. "But I'll still try to answer
all of them. First, yes, you can ask me a question." The snake's grin gets
wider. "Second, the poison is in you. It changed you. You now no longer need
to drink. That's what you asked for. Or, well, technically, you asked to not
be thirsty any more - but 'any more' is such a vague term. I decided to make
it permanent - now, as long as you live, you shouldn't need to drink much at
all. Your body will conserve water very efficiently. You should be able to
get enough just from the food you eat - much like a creature of the desert.
You've been changed.
"For the third question," Nate continues, "you are still dying. Besides the
effects of that methanol in your system, you're a man - and men are mortal.
In your current state, I give you no more than about another 50 years.
Assuming you get out of this desert, alive, that is." Nate seemed vastly
amused at his own humor, and continued his wide grin.
"As for the fourth question," Nate said, looking more serious as far as Jack
could tell, as Jack was just now working on his ability to read
talking-snake emotions from snake facial features, "first you have to agree
to make a second request and become bound by the secrecy, or I can't tell
you."
"Wait," joked Jack, "isn't this where you say you could tell me, but you'd
have to kill me?"
"I thought that was implied." Nate continued to look serious.
"Ummm...yeah." Jack leaned back a little as he remembered again that he was
talking to a fifteen foot poisonous reptile with a reputation for having a
nasty temper. "So, what is this 'Bound by Secrecy' stuff, and can you really
stop the effects of the methanol?" Jack thought for a second. "And, what do
you mean methanol, anyway? I thought these days they use ethanol in wiper
fluid, and just denature it?"
"They may, I don't really know," said Nate. "I haven't gotten out in a
while. Maybe they do. All I know is that I smell methanol on your breath and
on that bottle in your pocket. And the blue color of the liquid when you
pulled it out to drink some let me guess that it was wiper fluid. I assume
that they still color wiper fluid blue?"
"Yeah, they do," said Jack.
"I figured," replied Nate. "As for being bound by secrecy - with the
fulfillment of your next request, you will be bound to say nothing about me,
this place, or any of the information I will tell you after that, when you
decide to go back out to your kind. You won't be allowed to talk about me,
write about me, use sign language, charades, or even act in a way that will
lead someone to guess correctly about me. You'll be bound to secrecy. Of
course, I'll also ask you to promise not to give me away, and as I'm
guessing that you're a man of your word, you'll never test the binding
anyway, so you won't notice." Nate said the last part with utter confidence.
Jack, who had always prided himself on being a man of his word, felt a
little nervous at this. "Ummm, hey, Nate, who are you? How did you know
that? Are you, umm, omniscient, or something?"
Well, Jack," said Nate sadly, "I can't tell you that, unless you make the
second request." Nate looked away for a minute, then looked back.
"Umm, well, ok," said Jack, "what is this about a second request? What can I
ask for? Are you allowed to tell me that?"
"Sure!" said Nate, brightening. "You're allowed to ask for changes. Changes
to yourself. They're like wishes, but they can only affect you. Oh, and
before you ask, I can't give you immortality. Or omniscience. Or
omnipresence, for that matter. Though I might be able to make you gaseous
and yet remain alive, and then you could spread through the atmosphere and
sort of be omnipresent. But what good would that be - you still wouldn't be
omniscient and thus still could only focus on one thing at a time. Not very
useful, at least in my opinion." Nate stopped when he realized that Jack was
staring at him.
"Well, anyway," continued Nate, "I'd probably suggest giving you permanent
good health. It would negate the methanol now in your system, you'd be
immune to most poisons and diseases, and you'd tend to live a very long
time, barring accident, of course. And you'll even have a tendency to
recover from accidents well. It always seemed like a good choice for a
request to me."
"Cure the methanol poisoning, huh?" said Jack. "And keep me healthy for a
long time? Hmmm. It doesn't sound bad at that. And it has to be a request
about a change to me? I can't ask to be rich, right? Because that's not
really a change to me?"
"Right," nodded Nate.
"Could I ask to be a genius and permanently healthy?" Jack asked, hopefully.
"That takes two requests, Jack."
"Yeah, I figured so," said Jack. "But I could ask to be a genius? I could
become the smartest scientist in the world? Or the best athlete?"
"Well, I could make you very smart," admitted Nate, "but that wouldn't
necessarily make you the best scientist in the world. Or, I could make you
very athletic, but it wouldn't necessarily make you the best athlete either.
You've heard the saying that 99% of genius is hard work? Well, there's some
truth to that. I can give you the talent, but I can't make you work hard. It
all depends on what you decide to do with it."
"Hmmm," said Jack. "Ok, I think I understand. And I get a third request,
after this one?"
"Maybe," said Nate, "it depends on what you decide then. There are more
rules for the third request that I can only tell you about after the second
request. You know how it goes." Nate looked like he'd shrug, if he had
shoulders.
"Ok, well, since I'd rather not be blind in a day or two, and permanent
health doesn't sound bad, then consider that my second request. Officially.
Do I need to sign in blood or something?"
"No," said Nate. "Just hold out your hand. Or heel." Nate grinned. "Or
whatever part you want me to bite. I have to bite you again. Like I said,
that's how it works - the poison, you know," Nate said apologetically.
Jack winced a little and felt his shoulder, where the last bite was. Hey, it
didn't hurt any more. Just like Nate had said. That made Jack feel better
about the biting business. But still, standing still while a fifteen foot
snake sunk it's fangs into you. Jack stood up. Ignoring how good it felt to
be able to stand again, and the hunger starting to gnaw at his stomach, Jack
tried to decide where he wanted to get bitten. Despite knowing that it
wouldn't hurt for long, Jack knew that this wasn't going to be easy.
"Hey, Jack," Nate suddenly said, looking past Jack towards the dunes behind
him, "is that someone else coming up over there?"
Jack spun around and looked. Who else could be out here in the middle of
nowhere? And did they bring food?
Wait a minute, there was nobody over there. What was Nate...
Jack let out a bellow as he felt two fangs sink into his rear end, through
his jeans...
Jack sat down carefully, favoring his more tender buttock. "I would have
decided, eventually, Nate. I was just thinking about it. You didn't have to
hoodwink me like that."
"I've been doing this a long time, Jack," said Nate, confidently. "You
humans have a hard time sitting still and letting a snake bite you -
especially one my size. And besides, admit it - it's only been a couple of
minutes and it already doesn't hurt any more, does it? That's because of the
health benefit with this one. I told you that you'd heal quickly now."
"Yeah, well, still," said Jack, "it's the principle of the thing. And nobody
likes being bitten in the butt! Couldn't you have gotten my calf or
something instead?"
"More meat in the typical human butt," replied Nate. "And less chance you
accidentally kick me or move at the last second."
"Yeah, right. So, tell me all of these wonderful secrets that I now qualify
to hear," answered Jack.
"Ok," said Nate. "Do you want to ask questions first, or do you want me to
just start talking?"
"Just talk," said Jack. "I'll sit here and try to not think about food."
"We could go try to rustle up some food for you first, if you like,"
answered Nate.
"Hey! You didn't tell me you had food around here, Nate!" Jack jumped up.
"What do we have? Am I in walking distance to town? Or can you magically
whip up food along with your other powers?" Jack was almost shouting with
excitement. His stomach had been growling for hours.
"I was thinking more like I could flush something out of its hole and bite
it for you, and you could skin it and eat it. Assuming you have a knife,
that is," replied Nate, with the grin that Jack was starting to get used to.
"Ugh," said Jack, sitting back down. "I think I'll pass. I can last a little
longer before I get desperate enough to eat desert rat, or whatever else it
is you find out here. And there's nothing to burn - I'd have to eat it raw.
No thanks. Just talk."
"Ok," replied Nate, still grinning. "But I'd better hurry, before you start
looking at me as food.
Nate reared back a little, looked around for a second, and then continued.
"You, Jack, are sitting in the middle of the Garden of Eden."
Jack looked around at the sand and dunes and then looked back at Nate
sceptically.
"Well, that's the best I can figure it, anyway, Jack," said Nate. "Stand up
and look at the symbol on the rock here." Nate gestured around the dark
stone they were both sitting on with his nose.
Jack stood up and looked. Carved into the stone in a bas-relief was a
representation of a large tree. The angled-pole that Nate was wrapped around
was coming out of the trunk of the tree, right below where the main branches
left the truck to reach out across the stone. It was very well done - it
looked more like a tree had been reduced to almost two dimensions and
embedded in the stone than it did like a carving.
Jack walked around and looked at the details in the fading light of the
setting sun. He wished he'd looked at it while the sun was higher in the
sky.
Wait! The sun was setting! That meant he was going to have to spend another
night out here! Arrrgh!
Jack looked out across the desert for a little bit, and then came back and
stood next to Nate. "In all the excitement, I almost forgot, Nate," said
Jack. "Which way is it back to town? And how far? I'm eventually going to
have to head back - I'm not sure I'll be able to survive by eating raw
desert critters for long. And even if I can, I'm not sure I'll want to."
"It's about 30 miles that way." Nate pointed, with the rattle on his tail
this time. As far as Jack could tell, it was a direction at right angles to
the way he'd been going when he was crawling here. "But that's 30 miles by
the way the crow flies. It's about 40 by the way a man walks. You should be
able to do it in about half a day with your improved endurance, if you head
out early tomorrow, Jack."
Jack looked out the way the snake had pointed for a few seconds more, and
then sat back down. It was getting dark. Not much he could do about heading
out right now. And besides, Nate was just about to get to the interesting
stuff. "Garden of Eden? As best as you can figure it?"
"Well, yeah, as best as I and Samuel could figure it anyway," said Nate. "He
figured that the story just got a little mixed up. You know, snake, in a
'tree', offering 'temptations', making bargains. That kind stuff. But he
could never quite figure out how the Hebrews found out about this spot from
across the ocean. He worried about that for a while."
"Garden of Eden, hunh?" said Jack. "How long have you been here, Nate?"
"No idea, really," replied Nate. "A long time. It never occurred to me to
count years, until recently, and by then, of course, it was too late. But I
do remember when this whole place was green, so I figure it's been thousands
of years, at least."
"So, are you the snake that tempted Eve?" said Jack.
"Beats me," said Nate. "Maybe. I can't remember if the first one of your
kind that I talked to was female or not, and I never got a name, but it
could have been. And I suppose she could have considered my offer to grant
requests a 'temptation', though I've rarely had refusals."
"Well, umm, how did you get here then? And why is that white pole stuck out
of the stone there?" asked Jack.
"Dad left me here. Or, I assume it was my dad. It was another snake - much
bigger than I was back then. I remember talking to him, but I don't remember
if it was in a language, or just kind of understanding what he wanted. But
one day, he brought me to this stone, told me about it, and asked me to do
something for him. I talked it over with him for a while, then agreed. I've
been here ever since.
"What is this place?" said Jack. "And what did he ask you to do?"
"Well, you see this pole here, sticking out of the stone?" Nate loosened his
coils around the tilted white pole and showed Jack where it descended into
the stone. The pole was tilted at about a 45 degree angle and seemed to
enter the stone in an eighteen inch slot cut into the stone. Jack leaned
over and looked. The slot was dark and the pole went down into it as far as
Jack could see in the dim light. Jack reached out to touch the pole, but
Nate was suddenly there in the way.
"You can't touch that yet, Jack," said Nate.
"Why not?" asked Jack.
"I haven't explained it to you yet," replied Nate.
"Well, it kinda looks like a lever or something," said Jack. "You'd push it
that way, and it would move in the slot."
"Yep, that's what it is," replied Nate.
"What does it do?" asked Jack. "End the world?"
"Oh, no," said Nate. "Nothing that drastic. It just ends humanity. I call it
'The Lever of Doom'." For the last few words Nate had used a deeper, ringing
voice. He tried to look serious for a few seconds, and then gave up and
grinned.
Jack was initially startled by Nate's pronouncement, but when Nate grinned
Jack laughed. "Ha! You almost had me fooled for a second there. What does it
really do?"
"Oh, it really ends humanity, like I said," smirked Nate. "I just thought
the voice I used was funny, didn't you?"
Nate continued to grin.
"A lever to end humanity?" asked Jack. "What in the world is that for? Why
would anyone need to end humanity?"
"Well," replied Nate, "I get the idea that maybe humanity was an experiment.
Or maybe the Big Guy just thought, that if humanity started going really
bad, there should be a way to end it. I'm not really sure. All I know are
the rules, and the guesses that Samuel and I had about why it's here. I
didn't think to ask back when I started here."
"Rules? What rules?" asked Jack.
"The rules are that I can't tell anybody about it or let them touch it
unless they agree to be bound to secrecy by a bite. And that only one human
can be bound in that way at a time. That's it." explained Nate.
Jack looked somewhat shocked. "You mean that I could pull the lever now?
You'd let me end humanity?"
"Yep," replied Nate, "if you want to." Nate looked at Jack carefully. "Do
you want to, Jack?"
"Umm, no." said Jack, stepping a little further back from the lever. "Why in
the world would anyone want to end humanity? It'd take a psychotic to want
that! Or worse, a suicidal psychotic, because it would kill him too,
wouldn't it?"
"Yep," replied Nate, "being as he'd be human too."
"Has anyone ever seriously considered it?" asked Nate. "Any of those bound
to secrecy, that is?"
"Well, of course, I think they've all seriously considered it at one time or
another. Being given that kind of responsibility makes you sit down and
think, or so I'm told. Samuel considered it several times. He'd often get
disgusted with humanity, come out here, and just hold the lever for a while.
But he never pulled it. Or you wouldn't be here." Nate grinned some more.
Jack sat down, well back from the lever. He looked thoughtful and puzzled at
the same time. After a bit, he said, "So this makes me the Judge of
humanity? I get to decide whether they keep going or just end? Me?"
"That seems to be it," agreed Nate.
"What kind of criteria do I use to decide?" said Jack. "How do I make this
decision? Am I supposed to decide if they're good? Or too many of them are
bad? Or that they're going the wrong way? Is there a set of rules for that?"
"Nope," replied Nate. "You pretty much just have to decide on your own. It's
up to you, however you want to decide it. I guess that you're just supposed
to know."
"But what if I get mad at someone? Or some girl dumps me and I feel
horrible? Couldn't I make a mistake? How do I know that I won't screw up?"
protested Jack.
Nate gave his kind of snake-like shrug again. "You don't. You just have to
try your best, Jack."
Jack sat there for a while, staring off into the desert that was rapidly
getting dark, chewing on a fingernail.
Suddenly, Jack turned around and looked at the snake. "Nate, was Samuel the
one bound to this before me?"
"Yep," replied Nate. "He was a good guy. Talked to me a lot. Taught me to
read and brought me books. I think I still have a good pile of them buried
in the sand around here somewhere. I still miss him. He died a few months
ago."
"Sounds like a good guy," agreed Jack. "How did he handle this, when you
first told him. What did he do?"
"Well," said Nate, "he sat down for a while, thought about it for a bit, and
then asked me some questions, much like you're doing."
"What did he ask you, if you're allowed to tell me?" asked Jack.
"He asked me about the third request," replied Nate.
"Aha!" It was Jack's turn to grin. "And what did you tell him?"
"I told him the rules for the third request. That to get the third request
you have to agree to this whole thing. That if it ever comes to the point
that you really think that humanity should be ended, that you'll come here
and end it. You won't avoid it, and you won't wimp out." Nate looked serious
again. "And you'll be bound to do it too, Jack."
"Hmmm." Jack looked back out into the darkness for a while.
Nate watched him, waiting.
"Nate," continued Jack, quietly, eventually. "What did Samuel ask for with
his third request?"
Nate sounded like he was grinning again as he replied, also quietly,
"Wisdom, Jack. He asked for wisdom. As much as I could give him."
"Ok," said Jack, suddenly, standing up and facing away from Nate, "give it
to me.
Nate looked at Jack's backside. "Give you what, Jack?"
"Give me that wisdom. The same stuff that Samuel asked for. If it helped
him, maybe it'll help me too." Jack turned his head to look back over his
shoulder at Nate. "It did help him, right?"
"He said it did," replied Nate. "But he seemed a little quieter afterward.
Like he had a lot to think about."
"Well, yeah, I can see that," said Jack. "So, give it to me." Jack turned to
face away from Nate again, bent over slightly and tensed up.
Nate watched Jack tense up with a little exasperation. If he bit Jack now,
Jack would likely jump out of his skin and maybe hurt them both.
"You remember that you'll be bound to destroy humanity if it ever looks like
it needs it, right Jack?" asked Nate, shifting position.
"Yeah, yeah, I got that," replied Jack, eyes squeezed tightly shut and body
tense, not noticing the change in direction of Nate's voice.
"And," continued Nate, from his new position, "do you remember that you'll
turn bright purple, and grow big horns and extra eyes?"
"Yeah, yeah...Hey, wait a minute!" said Jack, opening his eyes,
straightening up and turning around. "Purple?!" He didn't see Nate there.
With the moonlight Jack could see that the lever extended up from its slot
in the rock without the snake wrapped around it.
Jack heard, from behind him, Nate's "Just Kidding!" right before he felt the
now familiar piercing pain, this time in the other buttock.
Jack sat on the edge of the dark stone in the rapidly cooling air, his feet
extending out into the sand. He stared out into the darkness, listening to
the wind stir the sand, occasionally rubbing his butt where he'd been
recently bitten.
Nate had left for a little while, had come back with a desert-rodent-shaped
bulge somewhere in his middle, and was now wrapped back around the lever,
his tongue flicking out into the desert night's air the only sign that he
was still awake.
Occasionally Jack, with his toes absentmindedly digging in the sand while he
thought, would ask Nate a question without turning around.
"Nate, do accidents count?"
Nate lifted his head a little bit. "What do you mean, Jack?"
Jack tilted his head back like he was looking at the stars. "You know,
accidents. If I accidentally fall on the lever, without meaning to, does
that still wipe out humanity?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it does, Jack. I'd suggest you be careful about that
if you start feeling wobbly," said Nate with some amusement.
A little later - "Does it have to be me that pulls the lever?" asked Jack.
"That's the rule, Jack. Nobody else can pull it," answered Nate.
"No," Jack shook his head, "I meant does it have to be my hand? Could I pull
the lever with a rope tied around it? Or push it with a stick? Or throw a
rock?"
"Yes, those should work," replied Nate. "Though I'm not sure how complicated
you could get. Samuel thought about trying to build some kind of remote
control for it once, but gave it up. Everything he'd build would be gone by
the next sunrise, if it was touching the stone, or over it. I told him that
in the past others that had been bound had tried to bury the lever so they
wouldn't be tempted to pull it, but every time the stones or sand or
whatever had disappeared."
"Wow," said Jack, "Cool." Jack leaned back until only his elbows kept him
off of the stone and looked up into the sky.
"Nate, how long did Samuel live? One of his wishes was for health too,
right?" asked Jack.
"Yes," replied Nate, "it was. He lived 167 years, Jack."
"Wow, 167 years. That's almost 140 more years I'll live if I live as long.
Do you know what he died of, Nate?"
"He died of getting tired of living, Jack," Nate said, sounding somewhat
sad.
Jack turned his head to look at Nate in the starlight.
Nate looked back. "Samuel knew he wasn't going to be able to stay in
society. He figured that they'd eventually see him still alive and start
questioning it, so he decided that he'd have to disappear after a while. He
faked his death once, but changed his mind - he decided it was too early and
he could stay for a little longer. He wasn't very fond of mankind, but he
liked the attention. Most of the time, anyway.
"His daughter and then his wife dying almost did him in though. He didn't
stay in society much longer after that. He eventually came out here to spend
time talking to me and thinking about pulling the lever. A few months ago he
told me he'd had enough. It was his time."
"And then he just died?" asked Jack.
Nate shook his head a little. "He made his forth request, Jack. There's only
one thing you can ask for the fourth request. The last bite.
After a bit Nate continued, "He told me that he was tired, that it was his
time. He reassured me that someone new would show up soon, like they always
had.
After another pause, Nate finished, "Samuel's body disappeared off the stone
with the sunrise."
Jack lay back down and looked at the sky, leaving Nate alone with his
memories. It was a long time until Jack's breathing evened out into sleep.
Jack woke with the sunrise the next morning. He was a little chilled with
the morning desert air, but overall was feeling pretty good. Well, except
that his stomach was grumbling and he wasn't willing to eat raw desert rat.
So, after getting directions to town from Nate, making sure he knew how to
get back, and reassuring Nate that he'd be back soon, Jack started the long
walk back to town. With his new health and Nate's good directions, he made
it back easily.
Jack caught a bus back to the city, and showed up for work the next day,
little worse for the wear and with a story about getting lost in the desert
and walking back out. Within a couple of days Jack had talked a friend with
a tow truck into going back out into the desert with him to fetch the SUV.
They found it after a couple of hours of searching and towed it back without
incident. Jack was careful not to even look in the direction of Nate's
lever, though their path back didn't come within sight of it.
Before the next weekend, Jack had gone to a couple of stores, including a
book store, and had gotten his SUV back from the mechanic, with a warning to
avoid any more joyriding in the desert. On Saturday, Jack headed back to see
Nate.
Jack parked a little way out of the small town near Nate, loaded up his new
backpack with camping gear and the things he was bringing for Nate, and then
started walking. He figured that walking would leave the least trail, and he
knew that while not many people camped in the desert, it wasn't unheard of,
and shouldn't really raise suspicions.
Jack had brought more books for Nate - recent books, magazines, newspapers.
Some things that would catch Nate up with what was happening in the world,
others that were just good books to read. He spent the weekend with Nate,
and then headed out again, telling Nate that he'd be back again soon, but
that he had things to do first.
Over four months later Jack was back to see Nate again. This time he brought
a laptop with him - a specially modified laptop. It had a solar recharger,
special filters and seals to keep out the sand, a satellite link-up, and a
special keyboard and joystick that Jack hoped that a fifteen-foot
rattlesnake would be able to use. And, it had been hacked to not give out
its location to the satellite.
After that Jack could e-mail Nate to keep in touch, but still visited him
fairly regularly - at least once or twice a year.
After the first year, Jack quit his job. For some reason, with the wisdom he
'd been given, and the knowledge that he could live for over 150 years,
working in a nine to five job for someone else didn't seem that worthwhile
any more. Jack went back to school.
Eventually, Jack started writing. Perhaps because of the wisdom, or perhaps
because of his new perspective, he wrote well. People liked what he wrote,
and he became well known for it. After a time, Jack bought an RV and started
traveling around the country for book signings and readings.
But, he still remembered to drop by and visit Nate occasionally.
On one of the visits Nate seemed quieter than usual. Not that Nate had been
a fountain of joy lately. Jack's best guess was that Nate was still missing
Samuel, and though Jack had tried, he still hadn't been able to replace
Samuel in Nate's eyes. Nate had been getting quieter each visit. But on this
visit Nate didn't even speak when Jack walked up to the lever. He nodded at
Jack, and then went back to staring into the desert. Jack, respecting Nate's
silence, sat down and waited.
After a few minutes, Nate spoke. "Jack, I have someone to introduce you to."
Jack looked surprised. "Someone to introduce me to?" Jack looked around, and
then looked carefully back at Nate. "This something to do with the Big Guy?
"No, no," replied Nate. "This is more personal. I want you to meet my son."
Nate looked over at the nearest sand dune. "Sammy!"
Jack watched as a four foot long desert rattlesnake crawled from behind the
dune and up to the stone base of the lever.
"Yo, Jack," said the new, much smaller snake.
"Yo, Sammy" replied Jack. Jack looked at Nate. "Named after Samuel, I
assume?"
Nate nodded. "Jack, I've got a favor to ask you. Could you show Sammy around
for me?" Nate unwrapped himself from the lever and slithered over to the
edge of the stone and looked across the sands. "When Samuel first told me
about the world, and brought me books and pictures, I wished that I could go
see it. I wanted to see the great forests, the canyons, the cities, even the
other deserts, to see if they felt and smelled the same. I want my son to
have that chance - to see the world. Before he becomes bound here like I
have been.
"He's seen it in pictures, over the computer that you brought me. But I hear
that it's not the same. That being there is different. I want him to have
that. Think you can do that for me, Jack?"
Jack nodded. This was obviously very important to Nate, so Jack didn't even
joke about taking a talking rattlesnake out to see the world. "Yeah, I can
do that for you, Nate. Is that all you need?" Jack could sense that was
something more.
Nate looked at Sammy. Sammy looked back at Nate for a second and then said,
"Oh, yeah. Ummm, I've gotta go pack. Back in a little bit Jack. Nice to meet
ya!" Sammy slithered back over the dune and out of sight.
Nate watched Sammy disappear and then looked back at Jack. "Jack, this is my
first son. My first offspring through all the years. You don't even want to
know what it took for me to find a mate." Nate grinned to himself. "But
anyway, I had a son for a reason. I'm tired. I'm ready for it to be over. I
needed a replacement."
Jack considered this for a minute. "So, you're ready to come see the world,
and you wanted him to watch the lever while you were gone?"
Nate shook his head. "No, Jack - you're a better guesser than that. You've
already figured out - I'm bound here - there's only one way for me to leave
here. And I'm ready. It's my time to die."
Jack looked more closely at Nate. He could tell Nate had thought about
this - probably for quite a while. Jack had trouble imagining what it would
be like to be as old as Nate, but Jack could already tell that in another
hundred or two hundred years, he might be getting tired of life himself.
Jack could understand Samuel's decision, and now Nate's. So, all Jack said
was, "What do you want me to do?"
Nate nodded. "Thanks, Jack. I only want two things. One - show Sammy around
the world - let him get his fill of it, until he's ready to come back here
and take over. Two - give me the fourth request.
"I can't just decide to die, not any more than you can. I won't even die of
old age like you eventually will, even though it'll be a long time from now.
I need to be killed. Once Sammy is back here, ready to take over, I'll be
able to die. And I need you to kill me.
"I've even thought about how. Poisons and other drugs won't work on me. And
I've seen pictures of snakes that were shot - some of them live for days, so
that's out too. So, I want you to bring back a sword.
Nate turned away to look back to the dune that Sammy had gone behind. "I'd
say an axe, but that's somewhat undignified - putting my head on the ground
or a chopping block like that. No, I like a sword. A time-honored way of
going out. A dignified way to die. And, most importantly, it should work,
even on me.
"You willing to do that for me, Jack?" Nate turned back to look at Jack.
"Yeah, Nate," replied Jack solemnly, "I think I can handle that."
Nate nodded. "Good!" He turned back toward the dune and shouted, "Sammy!
Jack's about ready to leave!" Then quietly, "Thanks, Jack."
Jack didn't have anything to say to that, so he waited for Sammy to make it
back to the lever, nodded to him, nodded a final time to Nate, and then
headed into the desert with Sammy following.
Over the next several years Sammy and Jack kept in touch with Nate through
e-mail as they went about their adventures. They made a goal of visiting
every country in the world, and did a respectable job of it. Sammy had a
natural gift for languages, as Jack expected he would, and even ended up
acting as a translator for Jack in a few of the countries. Jack managed to
keep the talking rattlesnake hidden, even so, and by the time they were
nearing the end of their tour of countries, Sammy had only been spotted a
few times. While there were several people that had seen enough to startle
them greatly, nobody had enough evidence to prove anything, and while a few
wild rumors and storied followed Jack and Sammy around, nothing ever hit the
newspapers or the public in general.
When they finished the tour of countries, Jack suggested that they try some
undersea diving. They did. And spelunking. They did that too. Sammy finally
drew the line at visiting Antarctica. He'd come to realize that Jack was
stalling. After talking to his Dad about it over e-mail, he figured out that
Jack probably didn't want to have to kill Nate. Nate told Sammy that humans
could be squeamish about killing friends and acquaintances.
So, Sammy eventually put his tail down (as he didn't have a foot) and told
Jack that it was time - he was ready to go back and take up his duties from
his dad. Jack, delayed it a little more by insisting that they go back to
Japan and buy an appropriate sword. He even stretched it a little more by
getting lessons in how to use the sword. But, eventually, he'd learned as
much as he was likely to without dedicating his life to it, and was
definitely competent enough to take the head off of a snake. It was time to
head back and see Nate.
When they got back to the US, Jack got the old RV out of storage where he
and Sammy had left it after their tour of the fifty states, he loaded up
Sammy and the sword, and they headed for the desert.
When they got to the small town that Jack had been trying to find those
years ago when he'd met Nate, Jack was in a funk. He didn't really feel like
walking all of the way out there. Not only that, but he'd forgotten to
figure the travel time correctly, and it was late afternoon. They'd either
have to spend the night in town and walk out tomorrow, or walk in the dark.
As Jack was afraid that if he waited one more night he might lose his
resolve, he decided that he'd go ahead and drive the RV out there. It was
only going to be this once, and Jack would go back and cover the tracks
afterward. They ought to be able to make it out there by nightfall if they
drove, and then they could get it over tonight.
Jack told Sammy to e-mail Nate that they were coming as he drove out of
sight of the town on the road. They then pulled off the road and headed out
into the desert.
Everything went well, until they got to the sand dunes. Jack had been
nursing the RV along the whole time, over the rocks, through the creek beds,
revving the engine the few times they almost got stuck. When they came to
the dunes, Jack didn't really think about it, he just downshifted and headed
up the first one. By the third dune, Jack started to regret that he'd
decided to try driving on the sand. The RV was fishtailling and losing
traction. Jack was having to work it up each dune slowly and was trying to
keep from losing control each time they came over the top and slid down the
other side. Sammy had come up to sit in the passenger seat, coiled up and
laughing at Jack's driving.
As they came over the top of the fourth dune, the biggest one yet, Jack saw
that this was the final dune - the stone, the lever, and somewhere Nate,
waited below. Jack put on the brakes, but he'd gone a little too far. The RV
started slipping down the other side.
Jack tried turning the wheel, but he didn't have enough traction. He pumped
the brakes - no response. They started sliding down the hill, faster and
faster.
Jack felt a shock go through him as he suddenly realized that they were
heading for the lever. He looked down - the RV was directly on course for
it. If Jack didn't do something, the RV would hit it. He was about to end
humanity.
Jack steered more frantically, trying to get traction. It still wasn't
working. The dune was too steep, and the sand too loose. In a split second,
Jack realized that his only chance would be once he hit the stone around the
lever - he should have traction on the stone for just a second before he hit
the lever - he wouldn't have time to stop, but he should be able to steer
away.
Jack took a better grip on the steering wheel and tried to turn the RV a
little bit - every little bit would help. He'd have to time his turn just
right.
The RV got to the bottom of the dune, sliding at an amazing speed in the
sand. Just before they reached the stone Jack looked across it to check that
they were still heading for the lever. They were. But Jack noticed something
else that he hadn't seen from the top of the dune. Nate wasn't wrapped
around the lever. He was off to the side of the lever, but still on the
stone, waiting for them. The problem was, he was waiting on the same side of
the lever that Jack had picked to steer towards to avoid the lever. The RV
was already starting to drift that way a little in its mad rush across the
sand and there was no way that Jack was going to be able to go around the
lever to the other side.
Jack had an instant of realization. He was either going to have to hit the
lever, or run over Nate. He glanced over at Sammy and saw that Sammy
realized the same thing.
Jack took a firmer grip on the steering wheel as the RV ran up on the stone.
Shouting to Sammy as he pulled the steering wheel, "BETTER NATE THAN LEVER!", he ran over the snake.
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