The Devil's Own

Dirt Ball Anyone??

2009-09-12T23:25:00.000-07:00

He shivered and muttered as the icy water went into the gap between his neck and his shirt. It slid down his neck mixing with sweat and grime. It felt horrible, all slimy and cold and sticky and wet. And he was too tightly bundled up to take off any of his many layers. Thick and heavy and slow he was. That was why he had been hit by the ball. Too big and too slow.

He wanted to cry. His nose was running and his eyes were wet from the cold anyway. Instead he bent down and scooped the ball from the stagnant water. Cupping it close he packed it with dirt to face his punishers. His shirt was sodden from previous attempts, hands wet and wrinkling, growing number. He breathed hot air onto them and tried to blow out some of the wetness.

He looked around for a target. Everyone was running and screaming and skidding and falling. Most had formed into gangs, temporary alliances in the heat of battle. But he had only been at school a few days. He didn’t know anyone and so he didn’t know who he should throw the dirt ball at. Not a girl obviously.

Most of them had stayed inside anyway. Not anyone much bigger than him either, or much smaller. He stood dumbly with his hand growing wetter and colder in steadily pouring rain, wondering what to do.

Smack! This time a lump hit him on the ear that was poking through his closely held raincoat. It burned cold pain into him. He burned too, angry and furious red. He saw who threw it, a big kid with a stupid grin. I hated you I hate you I hate you. He threw his missile with all the strength the cold cold day hadn’t sapped from him. It sailed towards the big stupid kid and his big stupid face.

But the kid was fast. He ducked, still grinning and laughing. The ball sailed past and smacked someone else right in the face. They fell to the ground in a heap and let up a wail. It was a little girl, small and pretty and crying. She was so loud that the playground monitor quickly ran over and scooped her up. She shot him a disgusted look as the monitor carried her inside.

That day he got hit by a lot more dirt balls.

Slow...

2009-09-12T23:22:00.000-07:00

The Ricky Ponting over-rate controversy has been one of the more baffling episodes of recent times, but is something of a breakthrough for those who see slow play as one of the most inexcusable and avoidable blights on the game, a tedious tactic indulged for too long by the authorities.

Cricket has found some spectacular means of worsening its own product in recent times – the current craze for building stadiums which are inaccessible to those unable to paraglide, for example, or pitches as dead as WG Grace, or the rebranding of Bad Light to Mild Murk. Slow over-rates are proud members of this hall of shame, and it is curious that the fitter and more athletic players have become, the less able they have been to average one delivery every 40 seconds.

In my next blog, I will suggest some means of ensuring that over rates are crisp enough to prevent Gubby Allen spinning too dizzyingly in his grave. In the meantime, is it too much to ask for umpires to start setting a brisker example?

No slower human movement has ever been officially recorded than that of two umpires sludging towards each other to confer over the light, like a pair of amorous teenage tortoises unsure of whether to make the first move, or two unhappy commuters trying to miss the same train.

This is sometimes equalled by the funereal dawdle to co-examine the roundness of an allegedly-misshapen ball, as if this responsibility is a holy, god-given ritual as old as time itself, and the ball is a precious relic whose molecules must not be woken.

Such sloth might have been understandable in the olden days of cricket, when umpires were only allowed to stand when they had attained a sufficient age to guarantee that their eyesight had failed. Now, however, the game is officiated by primed, thrusting super athletes (or at least by fit and mostly youngish men who probably have gym memberships). And yet, at stages of matches when they might be expected to scurry urgently in the hope of providing an expectant crowd with maximum value for their considerable money, they seem to move as if they are adjusting tentatively to a brand new spinal cord.

A Delicate Tear in the fabric of...Life?? You Wish...:(

2009-09-12T23:21:00.000-07:00

My heart plummets with my eyes as I spy a glimmer of white on a thing that should be nothing but blue. Confusion, shock, horror, desolation. Emotions ran wildly through my face, manipulating the muscles to convey the car wreck of thoughts I was experiencing. Cotton strands sprouted from the tear in the denims and I fingered it gently to see how bad the damage was. I wish I could say i got it by defending some poor old lady from a gang of knife wielding youths, or even grabbing someone out of the way of a speeding car and pulling them away in the process, but no; i snagged it on the nail that I have been promising myself to fix for the last three weeks. And so I held my pair of jeans, my prized possession of a six year and a half, and sobbed.

On the bright side of things, I am finding new uses for electrical tape.

Umm...Peeping Tom...Literally...

2009-05-18T02:18:00.000-07:00

I've been noticing a lot of little things lately. Like the way I sleep. I sleep on my left side, all curled up. Always. I tried other positions when I first realized this habit, and found out that none worked for me and I was completely uncomfortable. I take a bit of the top edge of the blanket and scrunch it up into a roll and hold it with a clenched fist. I put some of the blanket and sheet between my legs, because for some reason I can't stand my upper inner thighs touching each other. I have to make sure that my bare feet don't stick out from under the blankets. And with good reasons too... there are things underneath the bed that bite your toes off if they are sticking out.

Kidding, i just hate having cold feet. And when I sleep the room temperature is always around 18-20 C .

I found out that I move a lot in my sleep. Wanna know how I came by this fact. I videotaped me.

Seriously. I took my camcorder, adjusted the settings so that it can keep taping for at least 6 hours(adjusted the quality) and switched on super night vision. Viola.

I taped it yesterday night, watched it today while having lunch, and was amused. First off, people are right. I do look a whole lot innocent when I am asleep. I kinda did not like that. Felt vulnerable. Then after a few minutes of lying still I got bored and fast forwarded to the part where i saw a change.

I was smiling in my sleep. God knows what I could have been thinking, either my girlfriend or pizza, by the way i was grinning..maybe it was both..maybe it was my girlfriend HOLDING the pizza.
But I doubt I would snuggle against my blanket in that manner if it was a pizza, so it has to be the former.

Then after I began to move around, and to my embarrassment it partly looked like i was having a dirty dream. Fortunately the movement stopped quickly and the normal smiling continued, shortly after, that stopped too.

The rest of the video was totally normal, with the occasional caressing of the pillow coming into play.

People should try videotaping themselves...its funny.

Umm...Plagiarism with a difference

2009-05-17T06:14:00.000-07:00

This was a mail i received and i found it irresistible to put it in my blog. Kudos to who ever has composed it
PS: First time I am posting something thats not mine :( But this was too good

However harsh it would be, it remains a fact and we need to take it with a pinch of salt

OLD VERSION

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away

Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Modern Version

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The Grasshopper thinks the Ant 's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant ' s house .

Medha Patkar and Tan Shyamoli goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter.

Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticizes the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance) .

Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for "Bharat Bandh" in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.

CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers..

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'.

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the ' Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act ' [POTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the winter.

Arjun Singh makes 'Special Reservation' for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services.

The Ant; fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes; its home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it ' A Triumph of Justice ' .

Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice' .

CPM calls it the 'Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden'

Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

NEW VERSION :

Many years later

The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley .

100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India ....

because of loosing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the Grasshoppers, India is still a developing country!!!

I AM Indeed The Devil Incarnate

2009-05-15T22:15:00.000-07:00

It has been 26 days since my holidays have commenced and I am most happy to announce that I have made exactly 0% progress with my studying for the vast mulititude of entrance examinations. It is most difficult, and I have reason to believe that my books have been spooked with a spell of some sort because everytime I open my books, I have this incredible urge to fall asleep, which I do, invariably, hence the progress. Or the lack of it.
I don't believe its my fault. Its just that there are so many distractions. Take for instance, yesterday night. My mother had caught me sleeping on my desk that very evening. She suggested that instead of studying in my room, I could study in the balcony, where I'd get some fresh air as well.
Clearly, this was one of my mother's very intelligent plans. The balcony would be airy no doubt, but it would also be home to mutant mosquitoes.
[weird trivia alert] Hey dont jump to a concclusion here...mutant does not refer to the X-Men thingy...I say mutant because they are much like the locusts who had mutated in order to accomodate DDT in their DNA, hence making them immune to it, these mutant mosquitoes have mosquito spray/repellant accomodated in their DNA(Darwin's Theory of Evolution...sigh..) [weird trivia alert]
This meant that spraying HIT (now kills cockraches!) would pretty much be in vain, and I had to be extra alert in order to ward them off and thus the chances of me sleeping on my "Thousand MCQs to Success" (sigh...these textbooks DO have funny names) textbook would be pretty neglible.

So I went.

The balcony gives a straight view of the road, which meant I could people watch while I swatted mosquitoes. Right across my house, there is Krishna's Iron Vandi [cart], painted in a royal shade of blue. Krishna usually leaves at around 7.30 in the evening, so I didn't expect any kind of movement there at 8.30, which was the time I went to squat, I mean study there.

But I was wrong.

While I was flipping the pages, trying to figure out the head and tail of a realli complicated question, I saw a leg, right outside the little iron van. I cocked my head a bit and my instincts were right. There was a body attached the leg. I got up in the pretext of reading my textbook and then casually glanced that way again. Male, 20ish. He had one hand to his cheek and a rather wide grin on his face. Probably on a call with his girlfriend, I thought. But what I didn't understand was why he kept moving behind the van and coming out. I moved to the corner for a closer look and behold, hidden behind the van was a girl. A girl, with a grin on her face. And half her saree missing.
They were, as the immortal Bappi-da put it, louwers. Night Louwers.

Clearly, the spot behind the van was most convenient for their louwings. It was at a good distance from the streetlight and not easily notice-able unless ofcourse you were blessed with my observation skills.

"AMMA!" I hollered.

The effect was almost immediate. The guy almost jumped away and the girl was trying to adjust her clothes and jump out at the same time. Then they looked around in a most amusingly frantic manner before walking (almost running) away from the iron vandi.
My mother came in to the balcony.
"Enna aachu?" [What happened?]
"Nothing ma. Ennakku coffee venum" [Nothing ma. I want a coffee]

Ah, the simple joys in life.

I Am Back...

2009-04-17T05:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Blog,

Ive been so mean and cruel to you... didn't write up even a single post after ma hols started. I know ur real angry wid me... but wat can i do...??? Loads of stuff going on. Entrance exams... organizing a get together... roaming around the city... playing basket ball... watching every damn movie possible... making new friends... I should have posted as soon as my damn 12th standard was over... but I didn't. To say I had no time will be a damn lame excuse... i did have all the time in the world... Became aware I had a blog after a good friend of mine reminded me that I had a real good blog. I can almost see you sitting with ur hands crossed... back turned and with a real sorrowful face. The point of this post is will you forgive me??

Yours

The Devil Incarnate

Death-The Leveller

2008-07-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

Death has occupied my mind a lot lately.

Actually, I have been ruminating about dying at some point every day for the past 2 weeks, not in a morbid way, but more in an "Am I ready? Is there any unfinished business? How would I want to be remembered?" way, which I guess is constructive. At least, to a point.

What's not is, allowing myself to be tortured by the fear of leaving some people behind. As a new believer, I must draw the line of evaluation there. I can't give in to this distressing hand-wringing. For reasons of my own, I have been reading the Bible for the last couple of weeks.

I have always believed death will be like that dreadful moment of suspension. I cant stop but think about the unique relationship of a trapeze team. When the swinger lets go of his bar and hangs in mid-air for a split second, he has no protection. He cannot see his catcher nor control the catcher's speed or method. But at just the right moment, the swinger's "savior" arrives and whisks him to the base.

In other words, we will not be left hanging for one moment because to let go here makes us present there.

There is one particular place where Paul says, "When you sow a seed, it must die in the ground before it can live and grow. And when you sow it, it does not have the same body it will have later. What you sow is only a bare seed, maybe wheat or something else. But God gives it a body that he has planned for it".

The key phrase is: "that he has planned for it." As the story of our life unfolds, we are safe in the strong hands of our savior and "catcher" who has planned for us to be with Him forever. Nothing can pry us from his loving grip.

But for the more Am I ready? Is there any unfinished business parts - there was this song by Seals & Crofts that my cousin sister gave me years ago that I have on looped play.

windflowers, my father told me not to go near them
he said he feared them always and he told me that they carried him away

windflowers, beautiful windflowers
i couldn't wait to touch them,
to smell them i held them closely
and now i cannot break away
their sweet bouquet disappears
like the vapor in the desert
so take a warning

windflowers, ancient windflowers
their beauty captures every young dreamer who lingers near them
but ancient windflowers, i love you

Etymology...confusin...

2008-01-26T00:55:00.000-08:00

(Overheard at an undisclosed location)

Guy 1:
i want bigger shoulders , pecs , abs and big arms but dont wanna get too big , just 'toned'

my diet is great - i drink diet coke and cereal bars for breakfast and for dinner low fat yogurt and burger with no bap (i was told carbs are bad)

i dont want to go to gym so do 5000 situps three times per day - 900 pressups and bicep curls with a 10kg bar

will i look like brad pitt from fight club ??

Guy 2: (okay not a guy, Guy1's ultra-sycophantic girlfriend)
You already do, skinny soft lad!

Guy 3: (gags)
yes your body will but your face will still look like a horse's arse

I have no idea, why this conversation is relevent at all in any context.... but i cant get it out of my head... Is there actually such a phrase as "horse's arse"? I had developed a suspicipon that "horse's ass" was actually an alternate term for "mule" and not actually to do with farm animals' rear ends. Enough with the etymology already, my ma wants me to have my well deserved bath.

AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!

2008-01-26T00:02:00.000-08:00

I just sat here for an hour typing a new update, when firefox crashed and I lost the whole damned thing. I've gotta go play some violent video games for a while or something....I guess I'll try it again later. .... Oh, and did I mention DAMMIT!

2008-01-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

Unlike music by the Nine Inch Nails, which is better than it sounds, roast turkey is less good than it sounds. For a reason that I have not been able quite to fathom, it is supposed to be this really exotic christmas meal. Or so I, at any rate, have found.

Whether this is because christians somewhere cook it better, or if it is because it is a dish that is appropriate to the country, I am not sure. Perhaps you need to be near dense and dark pine forests, with clearings for witches and wicked stepmothers who either devour small children or send them out to find strawberries in the snow, to appreciate the comforts of roast turkey.

Yet, such is the theoretical allure of this bird that for a number of years I have seen people be reluctant to contemplate the roasting of any other for their traditional and compulsive (if not compulsory) Christmas overindulgence. After all, the connotation of the word turkey, that is to say of dismal failure, seems to me to be entirely appropriate.

Now if turkey were really so good, why is it that do we not eat it at other times of year? We are not very keen these days on self-denying ordinances, so the idea that we save up something delicious just for a single glorious treat once a year isn't very plausible. If something is good we want it all the time, in and out of season, and are prepared to import it at the greatest expense from Ivory Coast if need be.

So why does turkey so rarely appear on menus, other than in the slightly modified form of cold cuts in mildly exotic buffets? I do not think its size can explain everything. If it were really so splendid, we could cook half, a quarter or even an eighth of a turkey. The fact that we don't eat turkey all the time, or even more than once a year, tells us, or ought to tell us, something.

However, I disregarded these skeptical and dissenting thoughts this year, putting them to the back of my mind, which oddly enough feels as though it really is located at the back of my head, somewhere in my occipital lobe. I took no notice of the small, mocking voice that worms its way forward and tells me it, the turkey, will be no good. But it was still a new year party that was calling me over. So, I tell myself, as a man whistling in the dark, this time the turkey will be delicious.

The first and most serious problem with roasting a turkey is the fat. There is so much of it that normal dishes cannot contain it all, and one has to repeatedly empty the fat into various containers. And while turkey fat might have been thought by grandmothers to have medicinal and preventive properties when rubbed into the chest, and maybe is indeed excellent and perhaps even incomparable for roasting potatoes, yet there is far more of it than you can possibly want or use in a year.

Turkey fat does not keep to itself, either. Turkey fat vapour (or, I suppose it would be more scientific to say, droplets) soon spreads through the whole house, which begins to smells like a vast roast turkey, and remains roasted for a few days thereafter. Mere soap and hot water are powerless against the insidious invasion of turkey fat.

The meat tends to be dense and not easily digestible. It seems to sink directly into special receptacles in the small intestines , where it settles like a lead weight and saps the will for movement for at least two days.

My cousin was with us for the post Christmas yuletide celebration. He ate it with the undiscriminating voracity natural to adolescence, but in the middle of the night his grandmother roused us from our drinks and the scrabble table to say that he had a terrible stomach ache. We found him groaning in his bed and when we offered to examine him, he said, "I want a proper doctor, not you."

In my time in the market I had been on the receiving end of far worse insults than this, and I told him that no such doctor was available, this being Madurai, that I was better than nothing. Reluctantly, he let me examine him. In the end, my diagnosis was that he was establishing an excuse to not do the homework the following day that he had put off ever since he arrived. On the other hand, there is no denying the indigestibility of turkey.

My observations on the disadvantages of turkey as a Christmas bird have been confirmed by others. I am now cured of my illusion. I pledge hereby that in no year, will I be cooking my own goose/turkey. whatever.

Thirst For A Proper MMORPG

2008-01-19T22:28:00.000-08:00

This is a take on an article in the Daedalus Project a few weeks ago about people who fell in love because they met in "massively multiplayer online role playing games. (MMORPG)"

A year ago I was an avid player of these games, Final Fantasy XI (FFXI) and Everquest(EQ). They were fun games, but there weren't very many female players. And people estimate that half of the female players you did see were actually male players pretending to be female. Yuck!

But based on the Daedalus's endorsement I thought that maybe I should give this another one a try. I needed to find a game with a better male to female ratio (Yes, adolescence does that to you). So I tried The Sims Online. Sims supposedly has the best male to female ratio of all massively multiplayer online games, but hardly anyone plays it. I can see why. It's pretty pointless. There's nothing to do. In Fantasy or EQ you would join a team of other players and kill monsters. Only with good teamwork was it possible to kill them efficiently. Plot lines follow every other Hollywood Fantasy movie. Young apprentice befriends older mentor(another player). Work together to kill monsters(other players). The more you kill, the stronger you get, more skills you learn. (For the initiated, along the lines of Diablo, only more complex and more fun). And so, unlike the real world where you work and work and nothing happens, in this your work is quite shockingly, rewarded.

However in Sims all you do is stuff like take the dog for a walk, call your wife good names, make lunch, watch tv, eat dinner, go to the bathroom, take a shower, sleep. That was easily the only virtual world ever invented that is more boring than real life.

But this virtual world does have a better male to female ratio than the real world. And the girls (atleast i think they were) are easier to talk to. Every time I did log on, my virtual roommate, Ktrina79 starts chatting with me. Ktrina was a schoolteacher from Montreal and the pics she sent made me wanna go back to school. Was fun for a while, but there was no way i could go on with the tedium. For all I know "she's" really some fifty year old gay guy.

Although it may not fit the stereotype, we gamers are not immune to love. There's bound to be some flirting going on when you have a few thousand people playing an MMORPG together. The games are filled with scenarios that shed light on player personalities. Those seem like pretty good odds for the ladies.

We thus stand on the cusp of a new generation where parents telling their children about the circumstances of how they met will not revolve around college parties, chance encounters at a coffee shop or business conferences. Instead, they will tell their children how they met each other while battling gnolls in subterranean caverns or slaying the undead in forgotten crypts while pretending to be warriors or clerics.

Point of the post - I'm bored. Lots of work i dont wanna do.

Damn bad karma

2008-01-18T08:32:00.002-08:00

It happened again .... Blogger ate my post.I've tried and I've tried to get into the habit of copy/pasting my posts as I go, or doing it in Word...but I basically suck at it. And I've been sitting here being mad about it almost long enough to just do it all again...but now I'm too...mad. Maybe the universe is just trying to tell me to shut the hell up & stop whining...

Anyway, I'll try again later. Darn...

Where is the nearest bridge???

2008-01-18T08:32:00.001-08:00

I officially hate myself.

Don't you hate it when it feels like you've had a string of disappointments and you foolishly decide to rely on someone who is well known for being unreliable to be the one who will bring you out of the dumps? And then that person - lovely and wonderful and amazing as they are - is, as people tend to be, a human being, who has their own ups and downs to contend with (at an amplified dosage, no less).

Well, i don't know about you, but i hate it.

I'm trying hard to focus on the positive, which isn't easy, because for bunches of other reasons i've had a predominantly tough few days of late. The resources seem low.

Melancholic Thoughts Before The Lights Go Out

2008-01-18T08:28:00.000-08:00

It’s a melancholic Thursday. Hell, it’s been a melancholic week. I’m reminded daily of how blessed I am, but it doesn’t make it any easier to get past some of the emotional junk that creeps up on me when I’m not looking. I’ve slowly pulled away from the commitment to live simply and the conviction to turn back towards that casual lifestyle is growing stronger by the day. I have lived a lifestyle of plenty and can easily afford to give up many of the objects and wants I have so easily elevated to a status of need and possibly even worship.

My heart is pretty torn right now with thoughts of my second cousin. A good kid. Loved his mom. Went to college. Kept at the studies. Had grand plans. Kept the world turning.

He's now in a coma after a road accident. Been 5 days now. And I know that his parents have struggled for the past few days with his health, but being confronted with the reality of death is always a sobering thought. The most recent news is not positive, and I know that at any point I might receive that call from my dad with news.

I only got to know of the entire incident when I got back from school on Monday. When I found out that his mom was at the hospital fighting back tears, I headed straight for Trivandrum from school. Strong, resolute woman. I keep wondering if I should head to Trivandrum now to be with her, but part of me has hope that her son is going to pull through just like she has in the past. However, listening to news that his health is steadily deteriorating over sporadic phone calls has been heartbreaking, and watching their will to fight the inevitable has just compounded to make my heart heavy every time I close my eyes.

Yeah.... Good night to you too.

As Clueless As Me

2008-01-17T08:39:00.000-08:00

That little thing my sis is propping up is my lil niece and the following what she had to tell me.

What's those? My feet? That’s nice. And that? My bottoms? That’s nice. Look, there’s my middle. That’s nice. I’ll call it a “no-mack”. No, no, that’s not nice. I know, I’ll call it a “stomach”. Yes, that’s nice. Oh, my finger is in my mouth. Yo, yum. Very nice. Does the next finger taste as good as the first finger? Why, yes, yes indeed. Very pleasant. Now let me try the whole hand... Yumm.. Even better.. okay this hurts... And there’s Uncle. He’s nice. Behind him is a light, small and round, looking over him, over his, his..... “shoulder.” Shoulders are nice. They protect and they support. Also I can pivot myself on it. I’ll call the ball a “bulb.” Yes, that’s very nice. Very nice. I want the bulb. Let me reach for it and maybe I can refract the light from my nails… wait, is there a nail on each finger? And why did I call them “nails?”. Oh well, that works. Wow, there’s one on each finger. But on each hand? Wow. Brilliant. How nice. And on my big finger, too? Yes, there it is. I’ll call it a “thumb”. Is there a big finger on the other hand, too? Aha, there is. And they move too! Wow. How nice. Look, a dust speck. And another. It’s floating over the many intricate tapestries of the space time continuum. Lets stare at them. Pretty specks.. Lots of specks. And there’s my stomach again. Hmmm…. There’s my feet. Hey, Uncle’s feet. I’ll eat them. Ummmm, very nice. I’m tired of eating. I think I’ll “votit”…. No, “bomit”…. No, er…. I got it! I’ll “belch” on his feet. Ah! Very nice. No, where was I? Oh yes, the bulb. Wait, there’s the floor! And its tiled. What a nice color. Are there any more? Hmm, yes there are. And there’s mommy. Maybe I can eat her feet. Wow, look at that paper….. it has a nice design. Does my butt have nice designs? Mommy must think so, she spends so much time putting the paper on it. That’s nice. Oh, my rattle toy. Sounds are nice. Colors are nice. And uncle's reaching for me! Breathe hard, Anya! Wave your arms and pump your legs. Give him that half-tooth goofy grin! He’s taking me, I’m rising. Oh, look there’s a dust mote on his nose. Wow. He’s squeezing me. Ah…….. how nice!