planarity.

The objective of this game is to unravel the points such that a planar construct is achieved. I found it fun and pretty architectural with its notions of implied space.
Try it.

reminiscence.清明时节雨纷纷.

清明。
The season of light drizzles,
The reason for tear trickles.
A time for reminiscence.
A moment of remembrance.
For without the past, there would be no present,
For without the present, future would be absent.

The family visited my paternal parent's ashes in the columbariums. I have no idea what they are called - yet they certainly are not graves, just ashes in urns placed and concealed within concrete "pigeonhole" walls. I have never seen my grandfather - he passed away before I was born. There was also my father's sister - my aunt, whom I never got to meet, since she passed away at 3 years old of some common disease in those ages of wanting sanitary conditions.
The weather was subtley gloomy, the atmosphere was delicately sad.

At the columbariums it was interesting to see how the living honour the dead. This must be one of the oldest customs from prehistoric times - evolving from primitive burial rites, to the commercialised notion of providing for your loved ones material goods for afterlife like paper cars and money through burning. I believe such customs will continue, till extinction of the homo sapiens.

Though I am supportive of such customs where you are reminded of your predecessors, I have always wondered why technically why people do so. Generally speaking, for varying religions who believe different destinations for afterlife, the dead are no longer 'here' - they are either in Heaven or Hell, or even reincarnated. Hence they are technically not at the places where people visit, be they graves or columbariums. But I believe notionally, we feel that these are portals, through which we communicate and show our respect to them. Whatever the case, it is always good to remember.

For without the past, there would be no present,
For without the present, future would be absent.

argh!tecture.

Was recently introduced to this daily comic strip which centred around an architect - archibald.de.architect. Do take a look - it's funny, in a pathetically sad kinda manner typical of architects and the profession.

I particularly liked the following cos they are so reflective of the true nature of architecture:
value.of.an.architect
staying.in.denial

the.leader.of.the.pack

That the title of this post happens to be the title of a song by Shangri-las has little to do with this content.
(It's quite a sad song though... "Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!")
Finally!
Something that should have been posted long ago... hereby I present the representative of this page - toxic.boy!
Be sure to check out the other tim burton characters in the link on the right too!