I had to drop my kid to a kindergarten yesterday. As I stayed up all night long, and couldn’t be bothered with taking a bus, we hailed a taxi. A dog was crossing a small street leading up to my son’s school, and then I could feel and hear a little bump. We arrived. I asked taxi to wait a minute to take me to work - I was running out of time anyway, and was about to be late.
Driving up that small street again, I saw a small cute hairball of a stray dog, laying in the middle of the road. Obviously, we hit a dog on our way. Driver stopped and went off the car. A local man - shopkeeper from a little street shop nearby was staying next to the dog, smoking. He spoke to the driver. The street was small, and it seemed like he was not happy with a dead dog on the street next to his establishment. That, not the dog, was his concern. There was no rubbish bin or anything in sight - it is just a narrow street, without even a pavement. While they were quietly discussing something, I looked at the dog. There was no blood or anything - like this dog was just taking a nap in the middle of the street. The conversation was about to be finished; the driver reached the dog. I started to suspect he is about to grab it and drop into the taxi’s boot, to discard the poor thing later on somewhere.
The dog was not dead - it opened it’s eyes.
Continue reading ‘A dog story’
Other posts by boris kislitsin
I have an avid interest in cyphers and codes stretching back to my childhood. I guess it started when a teacher in our school read us, 8 year old kids, a story about how Lenin tricked intelligence agents from “okhranka” (tsarist secret service). Yep, that was a story from Russian language textbooks for the 2 grade. I know it sounds funny, but we had many stories in our books about Lenin: how he liked kids, or made a friend with illiterate bricklayer, how he swam across river Volga to prove something - to whom and what I don’t remember, etc. It was in the beginning of 80’s in the Soviet Union, and school education was a part of global brainwashing program. I have no regrets though, as we had great time at school, education was good and that stories in the textbooks, even those about Lenin, were interesting. Back to the cyphers. That story about Lenin and okhranka agents contained some references to the simple way of coding, by book, and the way to do so. Apparently if you use milk instead of ink for writing, nobody can see that there’s something written. To see the message you should hold the page above heat for a while, and transparent lines will become visible. While in prison Lenin could communicate in this way: his friends will bring him some books, he’d shape some bread as ink-pot, pour milk in there and write with it between book lines; after he’d finish he’d eat his “inkpot” (milkpot?) and “ink” left; having a nice meal of milk and bread. Secret agents never could catch him; moreover, in such a manner he wrote a couple of seminal texts. I loved this story and became interested in hidden ways of communication. Soon I started to research and develop cyphers and ways of communication with my friends, our neighbors’ kids, and even took a course on structural linguistics/cracking cyphers at university later. It was very exciting indeed, and I was happy to learn from one of the students of prof. Yuri Knorozov, who amongst other things decyphered Mayan script and later on his life “located” mythical place of origin of Meso-American people, known as Chichomoztoc, which is slightly out of scope of this post, though a very fascinating subject. So I’ll put a picture here, but won’t tell you why at this point:
The seven caves of Chicomoztoc, from Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca.
Continue reading ‘Zodiac killer code: mapping the way to Sirius’
Other posts by boris kislitsin
I remember moments. Certain indelible events take place during the course of my life that sear themselves into my brain and do not leave. I cannot remember what came before the event, what came after the event, or even precisely when the event occurred. I simply remember the moment.
As strange as it may sound, I remember the first shower I ever took. More precisely, I remember the moment I first washed my hair in the shower. I used Dad’s Johnson and Johnson shampoo, the kind that looked like the amber which held the dinosaur DNA in Jurassic Park. The disasterous fate which awaited me that morning superceded even that met by Jeff Goldblum and company.
Continue reading ‘Defining moments’
Other posts by Maria Cohen
Hello, I just had a look around Memorycemetery site, and found this memory by Tengu, called “Poo”. In this post Tengu says that she would like to find out if somebody else says sorry or thank you when they do poo. Well, I do sometimes. Moreover, there’s a site dedicated to poo, it called www.poopreport.com. I guess everybody interested in the subject can just have a look or contribute 
… Anyway, I would like to share my poo memory here too. Actually, I reprint it from PoopReport, but nevermind.
This is not the earliest memory I have, but it is one of the most vivid. When I was five I used to run around the house in my undies. (Ever since, I’ve always felt more comfortable and relaxed in them — which has led to some interesting moments when roommates have come home early from a trip or didn’t bother to tell me that they took the day off of work.) And back when I was five, I had this toy box — well, not really a box, but a giant plastic football. Now that I think about it, it kinda looked like a giant turd that had a hole on the top through which you would access the toys inside.We were living with my grandparents, as my mom and dad had recently divorced. My mom and I had to share the upstairs back bedroom. She was pretty good about it, as she was really only ever in the room at night to sleep; during the day I was allowed to play in there “quietly.”
I don’t recall exactly why that when I had to poop I didn’t just go to the bathroom. Instead, I choose to hold it. More than likely, I was probably just having a grand old time playing. So, sitting in that room dimly lit by the sun coming in through the window, wearing nothing but my favorite pair of Superman Underoos (I may have to find adult versions of these one day just to freak out my girl), holding in my poo, it happened. I was playing with Lego’s and Matchbox Cars, and when I moved to get more cars from the toy football, I suddenly had a giant turd in my underwear.
I didn’t want to say anything or get caught for fear of getting in trouble. I was getting in trouble a lot around that time for not having to pee before a car trip and then pissing my pants because I really did have to go. So I reached in through the front of my Roo’s and pulled out this turd that was bigger than my hand. I remember making a fist with my other hand and comparing them. Continue reading ‘My first memory of poo’
Other posts by grogan
