Kariudo:

So when I noticed that this task had, for the entirety of the Glasnost Era, gone uncompleted, I thought it quite a shame. A task based on the creation of trust (of a sort) among people definitely deserves to be completed, and especially one so undemanding as this one. Thus, I recruited my trusted associate, JJason, and we created the trust below.

As you'll see below, we each contributed a good variety of assets, though my plan to get some additional assets at a nearby gas station were stymied by cold weather frowny-face.

JJason:

Our trust consisted of: one (1) coupon good for JJason punching somebody, two (2) books, a text book on Latin American geography and a book on Japanese Hip Hop, and some sort of camera memory card adapter thing. I don't fully understand what it does.

Anyways, once we'd gotten all of these assets together, we had to decide the terms of the trust. We quickly decided that the trust would mature after dinner, given a desire to bring this trust to maturation before the end of the era, so we just had to decide how to divide up the items. After some brainstorming (Kariudo suggested we divide them up by height. I disagreed) we finally decided to divide up the assets based on a series of feats, which would be judged by "whoever was nearby." The textbook would be assigned based on a feat of intellect, the Japanese hip hop book by a feat of culture, the coupon by a feat of a fiscalness, and the adapter based on a feat of technology. Having agreed to these terms we wrote up our agreement, printed out too copies (one for each us), and signed the suckers. All very official. Now we just had to wait for the trust to mature.

Fast forward. With dinner in our stomachs, it was time to perform our feats. As per the terms of our trust, these feats were judged by whoever was around, in this case six of our closest in proximity friends. First, the feat of technology! Kariudo demonstrated his technological prowess by demonstrating how he stole information from the new york times and put it on his DS, while I made a short powerpoint presentation to demonstrate my technological prowess. The final vote: 3 to 3! We put it aside the technology adapter for later distribution.

Next, the feat of intellect! For this feat I demonstrated my vast intellect by demonstrating that I was not only reading a big, long, impressive book (Rules of Play by Katie Salen and Zimmerman), I was in fact reading a second book at the same time (Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross)! Kariudo demonstrated his intellect with a demonstration of his skill at using his camera, which was barely adequate. I won this one handily.

Next, the feat of the culture! Kariudo's feat for this competition was... something... I can't remember. (Note by Kariudo: My feat was that I was wearing a piece of clothing with the word "Theatre" on it. How much more cultural can it get!?!) I do remember that my feat was being next to a copy of Changeling: the Lost. So whatever Kariudo did it couldn't have been that great, given that this was another tie. The cultural book was also put aside.

And now, the feat of fiscalness! For this feat I demonstrate my ownership of a large handful of change but I was defeated by Kariudo's drastically discounted Japanese rail card! Curses!

It then came time for the run off. For the second feat of technology, I constructed a simple machine out of a book and a pen, demonstrating my control of the technology of the lever (and alternatively, the inclined plane) while Kariudo demonstrated his ability to read the information off CD's with his eyes. But most people didn't believe him and I was the winner. Go JJason!

Finally, the second feat of culture. In this one I was handily defeated when Kariudo's Shakespeare recitation was judged to be superior to my song of sticks ("stiiiiiiiicks.... stiiiicks!"). Oh well.

With the items distributed according to the terms of our agreement, we could safely declare our trust fulfilled.