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Off topic: The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord
Thread poster: Narasimhan Raghavan
Narasimhan Raghavan
Narasimhan Raghavan  Identity Verified
Local time: 17:37
English to Tamil
+ ...
In memoriam
Jan 2, 2004

My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear Plexiglas visors, not face-concealing ones.
My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It
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My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear Plexiglas visors, not face-concealing ones.
My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
I will not gloat over my enemies’ predicament before killing them.
When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “no,” and shoot him. No, on second thought I’ll shoot him and then say “no.”
After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks’ time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labeled “Danger: Do Not Push”. The big red button marked “Do Not Push” will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labeled as such.
I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum—a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.
I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
I will never utter the sentence “But before I kill you, there’s just one thing I want to know.”
When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.
I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero’s rugged countenance and she’d betray her own father.
Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it’s too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi storm troopers, Roman foot soldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.
No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way—even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless—my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.
I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line “No, this cannot be! I am invincible!” (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)
No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.
No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.
I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.
My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.
I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.
All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.
All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.
I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.
I won’t require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.
I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.
I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.
I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.
If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he’s my trusted lieutenant.
If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.
If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.
I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.
When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.
I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.
I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.
I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say “And here is the price for failure,” then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.
If an advisor says to me “My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?” I will reply, “This,” and kill the advisor.
If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.
I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.
If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper.
My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh PowerBooks.
If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess’s cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.
I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.
If the beautiful princess that I capture says “I’ll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, never!” I will say, “Oh well,” and kill her.
I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being, then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.
The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legions of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.
My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.
Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner’s manual.
If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.
I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.
My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.
If my advisors ask “Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?” I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.
Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.
I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.
If I must have computer systems with publicly available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.
My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.
No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they’d better save my life again.
All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.
When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
If I decide to test a lieutenant’s loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.
If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.
I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.
When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk “Project Overlord” and leave it lying on top of my desk.
I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)
If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutenant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.
I will not tell my Legions of Terror “And he must be taken alive!” The command will be “And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical.”
If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.
If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.
If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.
I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.
If I’m eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.
I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.
I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. “Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse.” Instead it will be more along the lines of “Push the button.”
I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.
If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.
After I capture the hero’s superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.
I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.
If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say this his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)
If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.
When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.
My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it’s an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.
My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.
My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unraveled.
If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others’ lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.
Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.
Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.

Added on 3-1-04:
The link is: http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html.

Regards,
N.Raghavan

[Edited at 2004-01-03 00:40]
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Edwal Rospigliosi
Edwal Rospigliosi  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 13:07
English to Spanish
+ ...
I'll remember them Jan 2, 2004

next time I try and take over the world.
Let's go, Pinky, we have to get ready for tomorrow night!



[Edited at 2004-01-02 21:59]


 
Russell Jones
Russell Jones  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:07
Italian to English
Places for Evil Overlords Jan 2, 2004

By the sound of it the German>English and French>English Kudoz pages would offer unlimited scope for such strategies:
http://www.proz.com/topic/17053

I notice the Evil Overlord List shut down as soon as you drew attention to it. Presumably you have exercised your indomitable power over it!


 
writeaway
writeaway  Identity Verified
French to English
+ ...
http://www.proz.com/topic/17053 is no laughing matter Jan 3, 2004

Russell Jones wrote:

By the sound of it the German>English and French>English Kudoz pages would offer unlimited scope for such strategies:
http://www.proz.com/topic/17053



The problems on Fr-En, En-Fr and De-En have been very real: numerous daily incidents of slanderous personal attacks by self-appointed overlords + faithful claques, some of whom act like henchmen and continue the attacks when moderators may have put some 'heat' on the overlords. Hopefully the resolutions will make people aware that there are many colleagues who have been concerned about this and those who stopped contributing to these sites in order to avoid all the unpleasantness will now decide to return and participate.

[Edited at 2004-01-03 13:24]


 
Lucinda Hollenberg
Lucinda Hollenberg  Identity Verified
Local time: 09:07
Dutch to English
+ ...
This one had me LOL Jan 3, 2004

Thanks for making my afternoon. It had me laughing out loud.

Lucinda


 
sylver
sylver  Identity Verified
Local time: 20:07
English to French
Petty amator. Jan 5, 2004

Oh christ! You would never make a competent Evil Overlord with such a program! If I was an evil overlord, ... let me tell you how it's done.

The overall idea is to weaken the population and create distractions so that no one ever notice there is such a thing as an evil overlord. Just "bad luck", or "that's the way things are".

If I was an evil overlord, I would make sure people got as sick and weak as possible by contaminating the food they eat and the environment the
... See more
Oh christ! You would never make a competent Evil Overlord with such a program! If I was an evil overlord, ... let me tell you how it's done.

The overall idea is to weaken the population and create distractions so that no one ever notice there is such a thing as an evil overlord. Just "bad luck", or "that's the way things are".

If I was an evil overlord, I would make sure people got as sick and weak as possible by contaminating the food they eat and the environment they live in. Animals would be fed with inappropriate foods and genetically modified stuff. The environment would be saturated with atomic radiations. When people became sick - and they would - they would be fed drugs to ease off the symptoms while creating further damages.

Every attempt to heal someone in a non destructive fashion would be labeled "unscientific" and the perpetrator would be harassed for medical malpractice.

My top brigades would be called "mental experts", so that every time I need to get somebody tortured or killed, I get a few of my mental experts to label him crazy, capture him and put him through every torture I want, including drugs and electric shocks. When the enemy is to be eliminated, his brain gets cut to pieces, at which time the mental expert's report would say something to the order of "Sorry, we tried to save him, but we got him too late". Since he was "mad", he would never serve as a martyr for any potential revolution. No. Some folks would sit around, and there would always be some there to say "I always knew he was nuts".

Drugs. And more drugs. People who take drugs rapidly destroy their body and really don't care about what's going on. Brilliant! I can't figure how any evil overlord could do without. It should start right at school. Schools too, oh, yeah, that's a nice one. I wouldn't want anyone to grow smart on me, so I would make sure the education system becomes perfectly non-functional, and prevent kids to get in touch with real life. Schools should never help anyone to learn and understand how things work. With an elaborate punishment-reward system, the main concentration should be in conforming and getting good grades, not on knowing and understanding. Using a special division of my brigades -oups, I mean, "mental experts" - I would spot any kid looking too happy, independent or different in any other way from the gloomy norm, right at school, and treat him with powerful mind altering drugs, or punish him. That way, he would go real wacko and be no treat anymore, …except for the other school kids, but who cares?

Obviously, I would have to convince the parents that they are not fit to educate their own children, and create as many obstacles as possible to alternative education systems, so that eventually, every kid gets on board in mental manipulation system – err, well, let’s call it “school” for now.

I would make education longer and longer. Then, if anyone raise against me or my organization, I would simply make it known that he never got any degree, and thus must be stupid. After all, if he wasn’t bright enough to stay the better half of his life bending his integrity over in every possible direction to get good grades, how could he possibly have anything smart to say ? People who have made an impact on the world mostly never made it through high school, so lets play it safe and keep everybody in school as long as possible,

At no time should anyone realize that I am an evil overlord, nor that I and my organization even exist as such. That’s the trick. Everything I do to people should be “for their own good”. Using media and especially TV, I would constantly output bad news and erroneous information to confuse people. After all, if everything is so bad, when they become aware of one ugly spot it will seem normal – crimes happen all the time, don’t they?

People should also be in constant fear. Crime, wars, terrorism, war on terrorism, embezzlement, diseases, chemical weapons, unemployment,… anything that can fixate their attention away from me, and withdraw themselves. Also, I could use TV to tarnish the reputation of any of my enemies even before they realize they are my enemies. Much easier then going through the justice system. Then they would be left fighting to clean their repute instead of fighting against me. Pretty neat, huh? TV would also take a major share of people's time. The more time they devote looking at the nonsense I would call "information", the less chance any of them ever becomes a hero. How could they, with a soapy to look at at every god given hour?

Anyway, back to the master plan. I would steal people’s money under the guise of taxes then “budget” and extract the money in a million of different ways so that no one figures it always comes back to me. Economics would get so screwed up that it would keep everyone busy constantly fighting to survive or buy useless luxuries, with no time to care for anything else (like educating kids, learning,...)

Morality and churches also need some attention. The idea that you live on is extremely dangerous. Same for the belief that someone created you and that owe him one. It pushes people to try and do good things, and make them more courageous. Churches must be destroyed from the inside whenever possible, and morality from all sides. If nothing is really right or wrong, I am not even an evil overlord, I am just a savvy business man, right? Important that. I think I should even dedicate some of my mental brigade to work on that.

Of course, there would be an occasional hiccup, but as long as no one knows the big picture and gets a clue how to do something about it, I should be fine. Forget about killing the hero. That doesn’t work because everybody is a potential replacement hero, and because no hero really makes it alone, he needs a support. No, really, the only trick to being a competent evil overlord is making sure that everyone is so sick and confused that no hero ever gets a chance to think of becoming one.

This is just a draft, but it should get you on your way, if you ever get a job as Senior Evil Overlord. Wishing you the sickest luck.

Cheers,
Sylver,
EOTO

*Evil Overlord Training Officer
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Ewa Nowicka
Ewa Nowicka  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:07
English to Polish
+ ...
this one had ME sylver Jan 6, 2004

and it's no laughing matter that it all sounds as if you already have taken over the world...
this should make some people stop and think
but do they log on to ProZ?


 
sylver
sylver  Identity Verified
Local time: 20:07
English to French
Unfortunately Jan 7, 2004

NowEva wrote:

and it's no laughing matter that it all sounds as if you already have taken over the world...
this should make some people stop and think
but do they log on to ProZ?


Mine was not a joke indeed, and that's just scratching the surface.

Actually, I should appologize to Narasimhan for hijackhing his thread which was quite fun to start with, but I felt like it was too good an opportunity to point these things out.


 
Narasimhan Raghavan
Narasimhan Raghavan  Identity Verified
Local time: 17:37
English to Tamil
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
In memoriam
No problem Sylver Jan 8, 2004

In fact the idea of the evil lord taking precautions is nothing new. Our Hindu mythology is full of them. I will come to that in a moment but let me deal with your idea of keeping the subjects drugged almost constantly. It has already been tried with disastrous results. Well not so openly but the idea was always at the core of the dictator's motives. Take the example of the Rumanian dictator who was executed way back in 1989. He looked so invincible but what a pathetic sight he presented on his ... See more
In fact the idea of the evil lord taking precautions is nothing new. Our Hindu mythology is full of them. I will come to that in a moment but let me deal with your idea of keeping the subjects drugged almost constantly. It has already been tried with disastrous results. Well not so openly but the idea was always at the core of the dictator's motives. Take the example of the Rumanian dictator who was executed way back in 1989. He looked so invincible but what a pathetic sight he presented on his last day! He had his own elite force drugged with loyalty to him but they were nowhere available to protect him. Same is the fate of Mussolini, who was killed and hung upside down along with his companion. One more thing. Behaving in the way as suggested by you, the evil lord is sure to get assassinated at the first opportunity. One well aimed stab by a really desperate person not caring what happens to him afterwards will suffice. One can after all die only once! Even if one were to survive all attempts and kill off all enemies, one will die of boredom, being surrounded by morons and Zombies and no person with whom one can interact on an equal footing.
Now to the Hindu mythology. The demons here always start their activities with a harsh penance, so harsh that it is frightful. They subject their bodies to all sorts of sacrifices and force the Gods of the Trinity to grant them boons.
One such was Hiranyakasipu. On being told that immortality is impossible, he put so many stipulations for his killing that they appeared insurmountable. He was not to be killed by a man or an animal or any God or angel, he was not to be killed during the day or night he was not to be killed in or outside a building and so on. So what happened? At the appointed time of his death Lord Vishnu belonging to the Holy Trinity, took on the Narasimha Avatar, which had a lion's head on human body. (By the way my father's name is Narasimhan.) He was slain in the period between day and night, that is evening. He was killed at his doorsteps, which were neither inside nor outside the house. The idea is: if you think you are smart, you have another think coming. There is always a smarter person.
Regards,
N.Raghavan

sylver wrote:
Mine was not a joke indeed, and that's just scratching the surface.
Actually, I should appologize to Narasimhan for hijackhing his thread which was quite fun to start with, but I felt like it was too good an opportunity to point these things out.
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Özden Arıkan
Özden Arıkan  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 13:07
Member
English to Turkish
+ ...
Thanks for this interesting topic and story, Jan 8, 2004

and I also enjoyed sylver's posting a lot.

But there are two points that I am curious to know further, Narasimhan.

First,

Narasimhan Raghavan wrote:

One such was Hiranyakasipu. On being told that immortality is impossible, he put so many stipulations for his killing that they appeared insurmountable. He was not to be killed by a man or an animal or any God or angel, he was not to be killed during the day or night he was not to be killed in or outside a building and so on. So what happened? At the appointed time of his death Lord Vishnu belonging to the Holy Trinity, took on the Narasimha Avatar, which had a lion's head on human body. (By the way my father's name is Narasimhan.) He was slain in the period between day and night, that is evening. He was killed at his doorsteps, which were neither inside nor outside the house. The idea is: if you think you are smart, you have another think coming. There is always a smarter person.
Regards,
N.Raghavan



Hiranyakasipu was killed in the evening time, and at his doorsteps. But as he had also stipulated that he was not to be killed by a man, or by a God, or by an animal, or by an angel, and so forth, who managed to kill him?

And second, you state that your father's name is Narasimhan, does this mean that in India too, the surname comes first, as in Japan, for example; that is you should be addressed as "Mr. Narasimhan" formally, and "Raghavan", when the address is informal. If this is the case, I'd like to know, both to satisfy my curiosity, and to stop addressing you as Narasimhan. Thanks in advance.

Best,
Xola


 
Narasimhan Raghavan
Narasimhan Raghavan  Identity Verified
Local time: 17:37
English to Tamil
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
In memoriam
Reply to the two points Jan 8, 2004

The incarnation of Narasimha is neither man nor animal and Hiranyakasipu was killed by an hybrid, which was not thought of by him while spelling out the stipulations. Really a play on words but our Gods are very dynamic and cannot be fooled. Actually there are wheels within wheels in this battle between the evil and the good. Hiranyakasipu was in fact a door watchman (Dwarpalak) in Vaikunta, the abode of God Vishnu. He and another watchman were cursed to become demons for a few births. They pray... See more
The incarnation of Narasimha is neither man nor animal and Hiranyakasipu was killed by an hybrid, which was not thought of by him while spelling out the stipulations. Really a play on words but our Gods are very dynamic and cannot be fooled. Actually there are wheels within wheels in this battle between the evil and the good. Hiranyakasipu was in fact a door watchman (Dwarpalak) in Vaikunta, the abode of God Vishnu. He and another watchman were cursed to become demons for a few births. They prayed to Vishnu to be killed by Him in each birth. But I am deviating, sorry. If I start talking of the ten incarnations of Vishnu, I am unstoppable. This deserves an entirely new thread, which I think of initiating in the near future.
I am thrilled to be addressed as Narasimhan, as in that way my beloved late father continues to live, just as he is ever green in my memory. In our community, the first son is named after the father's father and in that way my father was known in his time as Raghavan Narasimhan. Otherwise I am usually called as N.Raghavan. But should you continue to call me Narasimhan, I am just delighted.
Regards,
Narasimhan Raghavan
Xola wrote:

and I also enjoyed sylver's posting a lot.

But there are two points that I am curious to know further, Narasimhan.

First,

Hiranyakasipu was killed in the evening time, and at his doorsteps. But as he had also stipulated that he was not to be killed by a man, or by a God, or by an animal, or by an angel, and so forth, who managed to kill him?

And second, you state that your father's name is Narasimhan, does this mean that in India too, the surname comes first, as in Japan, for example; that is you should be addressed as "Mr. Narasimhan" formally, and "Raghavan", when the address is informal. If this is the case, I'd like to know, both to satisfy my curiosity, and to stop addressing you as Narasimhan. Thanks in advance.

Best,
Xola

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Jack Doughty
Jack Doughty  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:07
Russian to English
+ ...
In memoriam
Hiranyakasipu and Macbeth Jan 8, 2004

The Indian legend reminds me strongly of Macbeth in Shakespeare's play, who was told by the three witches that he would not die till "Birnam Wood comes down to Dunsinane" and that "no man born of woman" would kill him. Soldiers attacking his forces cut trees in Birnam Wood and advanced under cover of them to Dunsinane. And MacDuff, who kills him, says he was "from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd".

 
sylver
sylver  Identity Verified
Local time: 20:07
English to French
misunderstood evil overlord Jan 8, 2004

Snif

About the drugging, I don't mean the drugging of soldiers and servants, but of the whole population. And please notice this is happening right in present time, although I admit not being familiar with the situation in India, so that could be an exception.

When I went through high school, roughly 50% of my classmates had "tried" hashish. By the time my little brother came to that same school, 6 years
... See more
Snif

About the drugging, I don't mean the drugging of soldiers and servants, but of the whole population. And please notice this is happening right in present time, although I admit not being familiar with the situation in India, so that could be an exception.

When I went through high school, roughly 50% of my classmates had "tried" hashish. By the time my little brother came to that same school, 6 years later, out of 36 students in his class, only two, him included, had never tried the stuff. In the States, kids are put under Ritalin and Prozac for about any reason you could think of. Massively so.

30 years ago, if you had a bad hair day, you would stomach it and be fine soon after. Today, at least in France, the smallest sign of depression is enough to get prescription for substances like Valium. Anytime.

I wasn't describing a situation that happenned, or was tried. I was describing something that's happening in present time. Evil Overlord are not chief of states, or obvious figures. No, those are wrong targets. Confusion. Puppets in the hand of evil overlords who actually control our economy from behind, and hardly ever get disposed of by murder because they just aren't that obvious.

I am not saying that there is a way to be evil and not having it blow up in your face. It does, or at least, such is my belief. Like they say around here, "the wheel turns". So, I guess there is no way to really live a happy life while being an evil overlord. But if you are going to be a real evil overlord, you better rethink the level of evil. What's evil? Oppression of mankind is. Populations drugged, lied to, sickned, irradiated, raised against one an other. That's what I'm talking about.

And to give you a bit of a shock, I am reproducing here a well informed article on the composition of baby food in one of the most famous brands on the market. (Not that they are the only ones to do it - If you are eating, I suggest you postpone that reading)

Excerpt from "Mad as Hell" - by Dennis H. Clarke

"Some baby foods are fresh and wholesome but many are simply the means for manufacturers to get rid of things they couldn't sell any other way. By inserting a long polymer into the baby food in the factory, one that swells when water is added, it stretches over the various added substances making them impossible to distinguish from food.

As an added bonus, the polymer allows you to add so much zero-cost water that it is often the main ingredient in baby foods.

One slight prolem is that the polymer tastes like wallpaper paste, not surpising as it is actually the main ingredient in wallpaper paste. To cover up the taste, tomato puree is added, made from low-cost tomatoes, too decrepit or too bruised to be sold separately. The bright coloring also hides the revolting gray when the polymer is first mixed with the water.

To bulk it up, boiled and skimmed pig's feet extract is often used, or the scooped inner pith of discarded fruit can be added, too.

Chalk is often added next, its white color masks the gray gloop that shows through the tomato coloring. Baby rice especially is masked this way and it can be one third straight chalk.

The paste and water slurry now looks better, but it is still not a selling point to say on the label that chalk dust, pig's feet, water and wallpaper paste are the main ingredients. Something more enticing needs to be added.

Often that is meat taken from the animals we recognize as the usual sources, but rarely from the parts of the animal we are used to.

Baby Food is exempt from any requirement to label the exact part of the animal its meat has come from.

Bowels are one of the most common meat sources used in baby food. They are frequently put in great compression units with other hard-to-sell fragments --- brains, testicles and nostrils are especially common and then they are blended squeezed and cut into tiny cubes for mixing.

If enough fat has been stripped off, the resulting product can be labeled "lean meat". Sugar needs to be added to cover its taste. Kids don't mind straight sugar but parents are fussy so manufacturers often process fruit juices to yield a product that's chemically identical to ordinary sugar but it can be heaped on, without the dreaded s-word ever appearing on the ingredient list.

The mix is almost done but still lacks the right texture. The bowels, nostrils, testicles, brains, etcetera that came out of the compression unit don't ooze with the connective fats that more normal meats would. Frothy chunks of animal fats get slopped in, to help along with vegetable fats as needed. A few herbs, an attractive label, some iron shavings to add mineral content and there you are.

Sometimes they add processed cotton shavings or other cellulose pulp, "suitable for the hungrier child" other times it is just dollops of dextrin glue, the kind that goes on the back of stamps. Both sounds odd, but they swell exceptionally quickly, once you mix them with water.

Put the full water, chalk, pig's feet, paste, sugar, fat and stamp glue and cotton pulp mixture into a baby's mouth and you can trust that he'll be left quite full.

The baby cries in horror at the next proffered spoon. The father is perplexed and tastes some of the spoonful, which seems pretty good to him."

Wanna have another spoon?
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Özden Arıkan
Özden Arıkan  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 13:07
Member
English to Turkish
+ ...
Of course! A hybrid! Jan 8, 2004

Thank you very much, Narasimhan. I was really wondering it, as you didn't mention the hybrid before. And I'm glad that I had been calling you with the right name.


And thank you, sylver, for the appetizing info Oh my God! And poor babies, being denied their right of rights, the mother's breast, in favor of this crap! What makes me still more worried is that when the West is beginning to rediscover the value of t
... See more
Thank you very much, Narasimhan. I was really wondering it, as you didn't mention the hybrid before. And I'm glad that I had been calling you with the right name.


And thank you, sylver, for the appetizing info Oh my God! And poor babies, being denied their right of rights, the mother's breast, in favor of this crap! What makes me still more worried is that when the West is beginning to rediscover the value of the natural stuff both in matters of diet and healing, as well as the indispensability of the mother's milk, in the better-off sections of many more traditional societies it's considered a sign of welfare, modernity, being "cultured" (for whatever it means, as if there could be anything human but "uncultured") to dump them in favor of chemical stuff, polymer-added baby food, etc. How sad! Do you think that any one of us here could have the slimmest chance to rival the real evil overlords of our globe? I doubt...

[Edited at 2004-01-08 22:19]
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Narasimhan Raghavan
Narasimhan Raghavan  Identity Verified
Local time: 17:37
English to Tamil
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
In memoriam
But Xola hybrid is obvious Jan 9, 2004

A being is with human body and lion's head can only be a hybrid. (Or better a chimera?)
N.Raghavan

Xola wrote:
Thank you very much, Narasimhan. I was really wondering it, as you didn't mention the hybrid before. And I'm glad that I had been calling you with the right name.


 
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