Seeing the recent success trend of contests in Mouthshut, I've decided to start a new section called "Mind Ticklers". This section will contain riddles, puzzles, brain teasers etc to tickle the brains of the MS members. I want to try to make this into a contest eventually, but I don't know how I can judge fairly, since everyone logs in at different times, the times for solving the puzzles will vary accordingly. So I welcome suggetions from other members on how to make this section a fair contest.
For the starter I'll just post a few riddles to warm you up, PLEASE REMEMBER TO SEND THE SOLUTIONS WHEN YOU'RE DONE AS AN M2M TO ME. Posting  the answers in the comments section will just ruin the fun of the puzzle. I'll post the names of the members with the correct answers later. Anyone who can  give the correct answer will be featured, since I don't know how to solve the time limitation problem yet. Happy Solving!

1) A man wants to cross a border between two countries illegaly. A guard is sittinf midway in No mans land. If the distance between the borders is x feet, he is sitting at x/2 feet. The huard sleeps for 2 and 1/2 minutes and wakes up, looks around and goes back to sleep for the same period again. If the man runs at his top speed just as the guard falls asleep, he will reach the guard just as he wakes up and will be thrownback to where he came from. How will he cross? He can't cross from any other point on the border.

2) One man shows another man a photo of a man and says "I have neither brothers nor sisters, but this man's father is the son of my father". Who is the man in the picture?

3) In a small town, there are only two saloons. One is large, beautifully decorated and clean, and the barber has a wonderful haircut. The other is small, dirty and not decorated at all, and the barber has an awful haircut. A tourist visits who is very picky about getting a good haircut. He chose the small and dirty saloon for a haircut. Why?

A characteristic that I hate is Narcissism. It is a totally revolting quality in a person. A person I know has this quality. His motto in life is 'copy from others and then call them copiers'. Whenever he sees something he likes, he looks for a person who knows about that thing and gets some info on it. Then he later lectures that same person on the knowledge he had shared, acting as if he is the expert. He thinks he is never wrong. He is right and the rest of the world is wrong. All the people around him know less than the topic they specialize in than he does. If he declares a thing to be good, it is, and you just don't know anything about it. If he says that it's bad, then he's right too. Your opinion doesn't matter, since you're stupid. If you don't like something he likes, you are coarse and your tastes are lowly. If you like something he doesn't, then your choice is poor. He'll never admit he's wrong, he's never bad at anything, even if someone beats him at something. Whenever he sees someone he likes, he instantly copies that person, even if he's ridiculing himself with the attempt.
That's a narcissist for you.

One of the worst years that I ever had to encounter was class XI. Just after passing out of class X and opting for science stream I heard that the CISCE board had decided to make some changes to the education system. The earlier system, consisting of three unit tests with 10 marks in each subject, and the two terminals with 30% and 40% weightage respectively had been done away with. The new system consisted of three terminals, each subject carrying 100 marks with weightage being 20%, 30% and 50% respectively. The first terminal took place barely two months before we settled into class XI, resulting in disastrous marks. The teachers, to complete the huge syllabus in time, took haphazard classes and barely touched all the topics. Sometimes we had no idea of what we were being taught! After a year of this hell, we finally managed to scrape together enough marks in the final terminal to make a decent overall result. Now class XII beckons. For all Class X students waiting to get into class XI, my advice is "Be afraid, be very afraid".