I like when you sleep, when you sleep next to me

I had a weird nightmare last night... it was strangely continuous and fairly long. It had me in its grasp such that after I woke up to turn off my alarm, it dragged me back into its eerie embrace. It was one of those nightmares that affected you even after you're awake – even though I was half an hour later than my usual routine, I could not muster myself to move very quickly. I was stunned, still enthralled and contemplative, and as a result I still spaced out in the shower despite every intention of speeding through that comforting time trap.

It started with work. Except we were now located in a mall. And on this particular day, Irene wanted me to pick up roses for her from this store in the mall, and she had handed me an invoice from the store. I remember telling her that $24 was a bit expensive for roses, and she looked a little ashamed and said she liked the proximity of the store. I didn't push it further but I was curious as to why she was buying roses. Similarly, Mark, who doesn't work anywhere near me, also had two receipts for me to pick up some things in the mall. The work day went by, and there was a club inside the mall that we were going to go to after work. So Richard, Irene and I headed down there, and there was this other crowd of indeterminate extras that I was talking to as Richard was laying on the charm at the bar, and I was explaining to them how he's always charming like that and popular. Except currently he seemed a little drunk and no one was around him. He was working on some girl across the bar though. I was satisfied that he'd have a companion soon... and then I remembered about the errands I was supposed to run, and the mall was about to close. I ran across the mall (Irene told me to go in the wrong direction), and when I finally got to the flower shop, I realized I didn't have the receipt. So I ran back the short distance to the club to grab the receipts from the jacket, intending to grab Mark's stuff for him too.

And this is where it really began. I consider it some kind of miracle that I remember all the details before this, and they are all still very clear in my mind instead of the usual uncertainty that comes with remembering details of dreams.

I grabbed my jacket, and I noticed the various bouncers were ushering everyone out, except for a few people here and there. I overheard one of the bouncers tell Richard sarcastically “yeah, yeah, only the cool people get to stay”. I was one of the few that wasn't ushered out, and we were all directed to this theatre room. I remember being very shocked and confused as to why I was being chosen to stay, and I wanted to get out there and hang out with Richard but was too curious about what was about to happen here. On my way to the theatre room, I noticed that Snoop Dogg was one of the people heading there, and apparently I knew him in this dimension. He had a pocket on the arm of his jacket, and I unzipped it and searched in there for some clue of what's about to happen, since Snoop seemed to be the type of guy to be in the know. Nothing but some money and a bus token, and I handed him back all his materials and then I never saw him again for the rest of the dream.

In this theatre we sat for a short while and then we were herded onto a bus, and it started driving us into the countryside. The sides of the road looked golden, and I was suddenly reminded of jPod and (spoilers warning!) how Ethan got on this bus and he didn't know where it would take him and it could easily take him into a slavery at a sweat shop, and I started getting worried. Maybe this was where the nightmare seed was planted in my mind and the dream changed. I'm not too sure of how they work. Then Brad Pitt, who was the club proprietor, except he wasn't Brad Pitt, came on the bus P.A. System and announced that we were all going to die, and that we started thinking about our last wishes. As everyone around me were shocked and mildly freaking out, I began to seriously agonize over what my last wish would be. I thought about something that would maybe buy us some time, but I couldn't really get a hold of it. Then Pitt announced that first he was going to come around and break our knees with a baseball bat, and then he would come around to ask us the meaning of life, and if any of us answer 42 as some of us “must” do, we would be mutilated and tossed off the bus immediately. I was unfortunately sitting near the front of the bus, and I braced for the pain as he wound up his bat, but I knew I could not move or duck away or I would be killed. I imagined the pain I would be in moments from then, but instead, he turned around to harass a lady on the opposite side. A balding man in the first seat opposite me grabbed some rope and stealthily manuevered around Pitt. I thought to myself, maybe I should help him when he attacks (he forcefully put the rope around Pitt's neck like a garrotte at this point), and as I was getting up, Pitt twisted around quickly (I guess the balding man did not hold him tight enough) and stabbed him with a small corkscrew type thing. I sat down from shock and fear that he had seen me wanting to take action against him and would kill me next. Pitt stabbed the man a few more times in the neck for good measure and left him on the floor.

Pitt cleaned himself up at the front of the bus and as he walked past me to the back of the bus, he threw the corkscrew weapon into my lap. It was the size of my pinky, and I was curious as to why he handed me a weapon. He probably did see me half standing and was daring me to make a move. I gripped the weapon in a fist and remained calm and seated, wondering if I had failed the balding man and questioning whether I should have moved sooner.

There were ocassional scenes throughout this part that focused on these two eighteen year-olds who were somehow left behind in the club. They couldn't find a way out because the door was locked. They did not know each other before this crisis. Somehow I ended up back at the club. There was a clear slip in time and space that I'm not sure can really be explained. I checked the front door and found that it was a thin wooden door. I found the teens and scolded the male teen: “Surely you can break through a wood.” When the female pushed on the door it opened. It wasn't locked at all. At this point I was incensed but managed to keep my cool, knowing that I needed these teens to get help. So I showed them on an interactive map like you would find in WoW using Cartographer that happened to be on the wall by the door. According to the moving dots, the bus group seemed to be somewhere in Africa and moving rapidly east through Asia. I asked them to hurry and get help for the people there. At this point my mind asked why I couldn't leave, and it reasoned that Pitt must've threatened my family if I had left when I returned to the club.

The bus crew returned, with a few people missing, and there was entertainment. It was a sinister sort of entertainment, like a siren's song. One of Pitt's cronies was singing karaoke, and all his ladies were entertaining guests in the pool, which I stayed out of. No one bothered me, surprisingly, and I walked around the pool. The girls were drowning various people and I felt sorry for them. I thought of all the dead bodies in the pool. There was a girl who managed to surface, and the Pitt girl pretended nothing was going on and continued to be sweet and soothing, but the girl was irate and could not be soothed. When the song was done, a girl I used to know, Vivian, asked me to sing a song, but I told her to go ahead, that she had a better voice anyway, and she went into the booth. I felt some despair as to the helplessness of my situation and how sinister it was that there were all these dead bodies everywhere in broad daylight that was pouring in now from the newly revealed skylight. Yet I felt some relief that nothing has happened to me yet and that I still had hope that help would find us here instead of searching in Africa and through Asia as I had directed the teens. I wondered how Pitt got back from Africa so fast, and of course, the answer was that it was the same way I got back here so fast.

That's when I realized that my alarm had already alerted my it was time to wake up a while ago. Uh oh.

When it's cold outside, I've got the month of May

Dear Ronald McDonald,


I heard that they made you take the beef juice out of your fries. I will be the first to say that that is a terrible shame for all of humanity. Even though your fries are still king in a saturated market, I for one will not sleep well knowing that there are some random and inedible cow parts we are not milking for their sweet juices to flavour your delicious potato product.

And you know what I like about you? Even though the Man stuck it to you, you’re still at the top. Sure, some people can provide “sales data” that may prove contrary to my claim, but as Homer Simpson once said: “facts, schmacts, you can use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.”

I suppose I should tell you a bit about me, your perfect mate. I don’t enjoy long walks on the beach, as I imagine you don’t or your makeup would melt or make you uncomfortable in that hulking costume. Which brings me to a question: Do you have multiples of that same outfit or do you just wear that one all the time? Is that clown showerhead that’s much too low to wash your upper body able to cleanse out the lower parts? I suppose that’s two questions but... too bad!

Also as your perfect mate, you will have limited access to my various areas of expertise, none of which are useful in a survival-pragmatism sense. If they shut off all the computers in the world, I would die. Zombies would find me quivering in a corner, unable to comprehend an insensible world. My brain would not be all that tasty, I imagine, because I exercise it all the time as the scientists like to encourage you to do (maybe they’re onto something?). In another survival scenario, if they shut off all the computers, I would be completely extraneous and after the other survivors were done toying with enslaving me, they would dispose of me by churning me into a delectable smoothie (blenders don’t need software).

If any of what I just said sounds appealing to you, call me anytime. Just remember: I’ll put my beef juice on your fries anytime.


Bovinely yours,


Don.

Too long overdue, it's true, i'm out of control

I've started reading JPod today. Microserfs is a great book and I loved it. It's hard not to like it as a Software Developer and a nerd at heart. It's like someone took the time to write about you, and about your quirks and about the way you think. So I'm really looking forward to this one, even though I don't work for a game company.

I will discuss the book in various posts, but I will always warn about spoilers. So here we go: SPOILERS BELOW.

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Engineers aren't funny or cute or nerdy. They're damaged.

The older the culture is, the less cutesy it is about saying, "Well, you're a winner because you tried your best." Can you imagine a Chinese person saying that?

It's so easy to locate myself in this book that it feels a bit like cheating. The opening stream of consciousness section is entertaining, and gives that quality of intimacy. I was just discussing with Arwen yesterday how it's those little thoughts that create intimacy. Anyone can share general thoughts and big moments together, but it's the little thoughts and little moments, from being together all the time or sharing thoughts all the time that really... bond. Then, I guess I encourage certain people to tell me everything they're thinking, even the little thoughts, because I crave intimacy with them. I'm damaged.

This leads me to another musing I've had on and off for a while: the internet and connectivity of the world in general is trending society towards more diluted and shallow relationships. It has become a quantitative goal rather than qualitative. In the world of Facebook, it's no longer necessary to cultivate specific relationships. There is no need to be intimate with people. For example, it used to be that kids would hang out. They would hang out for the sake of hanging out, even if they had nothing to do and they were bored, they would be together and learn how to coexist in boring times. They'd try to entertain themselves with each other. Over the internet this will not happen. If I am "hanging out" or talking to someone online, you can guarantee that they are probably doing or thinking about something else. If things get boring they can just go play another game or talk to someone else. The lack of dependency causes a gap in the bonding process. I think this is why the gang is so strong. We were dependent on each other every weekend, and we got together for good or ill. And for my part, I try to recreate this over all my new friendships, and it's not working. No one needs or wants to be intimate with me. I have always preferred to be intimate and share my resources with a select few rather than get into the whole social acquaintances mess. What do I have now?

Now that I'm started, I guess I might as well express my increasing loneliness from not being able to hang out with my friends. Jas is terrific and great and really fantastically adorable, but going from hanging out with my friends every weekend to nothing is... impactful. They do not come to visit, some have not even asked to visit. Not that I have much to entertain them with my 20" CRT, but... I guess this goes back to my feelings above.

I feel like I've run out of gas and probably won't be doing the second quote justice. The statement infers that practicality wins out in the end. It's true that Chinese people would only laugh at you for failing, because success is everything in that culture (practical for a nation of over a billion people). And yet, they hold on to such crazy and impractical traditions and superstitions. It's one giant paradox wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

I've got a Dungeon Master's Guide. I've got a twelve-sided die.

There have been many amusing jokes and webcomics that have come out of Gary Gygax's death, including Richard saying "Are you sure he's not just at -2 hps?". This one I'll point out in particular, because I love when people apply things... cross-discipline, as it were:
Monster Manual: Politicians

Roleplaying has served a fairly role (pun optional) in my life. I miss it, and now I am paying my small tribute to the man who, in some way, introduced me to it. Sure, First Edition was a bit crazy, but it started something. Kind of like the first Dance Dance Revolution. I can only hope that he is smiling in the afterlife, knowing that he is still bringing laughter and entertainment in his death.

I finished "American Gods" this morning. I do not like it as much as the other Gaiman novels, but I still like it. It's well written and fairly entertaining. There is a weird sense of seriousness that you don't get with other Gaiman novels, though, like the sheer weight of the atmosphere is telling you to look for something. Maybe at another point in my life this would be my favourite Gaiman novel. I'm interested to hear what Jasmine will think of Gaiman novels. What stood out to me were the acknowledgments. An immense amount of work by very many people went into that book. For all you kids who think writing is just about sitting in front of a typewriter, think again. You need lots of help and a lot of experts. You need to go ask the police about police procedures, and become familiar with the subject matter. Try to experience the events, maybe. The task of writing a novel now seems gargantuan and very strange.

I hope you don't mind that I put down in words

Jasmine is the most fantastic being ever in the history of creation. Even before creation. Nullness and void were looking into the future and discussing how wonderful a being Jas really is.

I realize every parent will claim this about their child. I don't care. There is also room for them to be right. I submit as proof, exhibit A:



I could gush about her forever, so I had better stop. But something feels so... right when she's snuggling into my neck when I burp her, or when she's listening to my heartbeat calmly.

Without you, it's not as much fun to pick up the pieces

Another contemplative but not necessarily revealing post:

It seems impossible to extract how people really feel about other people, and therefore, about you.

That isn't as malicious as it sounds. Even when people try to be candid, there are just layers upon layers of filters and concerns that end up muddling the message. For example, some people think that the "real" feelings are negative, and won't believe the answer they're getting to be real unless it is negative. And then the respondent will subconsciously shift their answer into a more negative tone just to sound sincere. Also, there's always the concern of what will the audience feel or think if I say such things, which is always subconsciously working in our minds. Cocoons of thought, and all these little thoughts are in there, hidden so well.

I dream of the day that people can cut through that bullshit with me. I don't judge responses, I just really want to understand and know. When I ask a question, I am genuinely and sincerely interested in what you have to say. And the feeling that I won't know the whole and precise truth just causes this desire that seemingly can't be satisfied.

In your reflection, he lives in you

Something in me is getting weary of online conversations. Does anyone talk just to talk to one person anymore? Is anyone interesting enough to completely hold someone's attention?

I've sat online just talking to one person doing nothing else, because I'm genuinely interested in these people. I assume I am not that interesting, and that makes me very sad.

(Nads doesn't count cause I talk to her face to face. I guess when you're face to face with someone they have no choice but to talk to you.)