Bedtime for Xanthochroid

Dream between 2:30am and 9:30am on December 11th, 2009

2009-12-12T02:45:00.000-08:00

I often have dreams about the end of the world, but today's was more disturbing than normal.

Dream:

One of the first things I remember acknowledging in the dream is that it was in fact an end of the world dream. I'm typically the hero in such dreams, but I noticed that it was in fact Travis that would be the hero this time. That scenario quickly died out, as I ended up being the "hero" of this awful dream.

The world was rife with pandemonium. People were killing each other gruesomely in public and pillaging aplenty. I was given we dream denizens referred to as the "World Nuke" by someone, or something. It an ominous bomb, black and red with a detonation attachment that was attached to a small cord. The purpose of the World Nuke was apparently - to destroy the world. People seemed to know about this, thus the unspeakable self-created Armageddon that boiled and seethed all around me.

It was my goal to keep the World Nuke safe and out of the hands of people who would use it. My e-mail team brethren were there to help me, but after much running away from bad guys in a crowded apartment building and a daring bus escape, it was down to just me and Ray. Sometime in between, someone asked (perhaps even me asking) if I should just give the World Nuke to Obama, or sell it to China. It was the general consensus that doing either would be terrible.

The dream ended with an unsavory scene. Ray's mom was in an apartment building that was being ransacked, so we rushed to it to save her. We found her in bed and were glad that she was safe. As we were breathing sighs of relief, a shadow fell over her and her heart began beating out of her chest. It doing so in bursts, swelling up and out like a grotesque balloon before finally rupturing in a spray of blood. What a lovely way to start the day.

Dreams between 3am and 9:30am on December 9th, 2009

2009-12-09T10:03:00.000-08:00

I've been lax about updating this lately because the dreams that I've remembered over the past few days have been short. In one, my boss Bill Zuver came to the house for tea to talk about something. Then it was suddenly Silent Hill, and I was helping two young women find shelter. One of the "monsters" just looked like a guy with white make-up on. It made it all the more unsettling to hit him repeatedly in the head with a metal pipe until he died.

The night before last I had a dream that I was at some hybrid of work and school - I was in a cafeteria but it was full of work people. Then it became a bar at some point. I had a really hard time breathing. I would take a breath and get just enough air, but not enough to fully fill my lungs. It was very unpleasant. On to last night's dreams.

Dream #1:

This was a bizarre hybrid of work and some feel-good family TV show. I was living with my mom and little brother in this three story house along with my boss Mel and some dream person. One of the duties we had to fulfill was writing down activities where we "go the extra mile." It's one of those difficult-to-explain dream logic scenarios.

Anyway, we all determined that my little brother (who in the dream was about seven or eight years old) was doing all of the chores and work. He was walking with cherry lip balm making sure that our lips weren't chapped. When he went downstairs to apply some to mom's lips, he came back up and said that she wasn't talking or some strange thing.

I went downstairs to see what the deal was and found the carpet to be littered with red splotches. Some of them obviously from the cherry lip balm being pressed against the rug - I made a mental note to scold my brother about it - but there were spots of a darker red that were worrisome. I only assumed that they were globs of wax that dripped from a candle onto the floor.

When I opened the door to my mom's room, she was just lying on her bed, still and quiet with my brother standing next to her. Before toddling off, he said something, I can't remember exactly what, that worried me.

I went to find the others in the house but everyone was gone. I began to panic, and dialed 911. The operator wasn't very receptive to my call, and I ended up putting her on hold after I found that my mom was in a laundry room putting things away. When I tried to talk to her she told me to go away. Also, she had become Sarah Jessica Parker. What in this dream is scarier?

Dream #2:

In this dream, I was on an adventure with Link. We were searching for treasure, and I found a talking scarecrow who gave me some hints on where we were supposed to go next. There was another anime-looking guy with us with scruffy dark hair and wearing sort of samurai robe. I remember him being comically exasperated.

Dream #3:
The last dream was me watching a video of Vanilla Ice beatboxing. That's it. Sigh.

Dream between 2:30am and 9:30am on December 2nd, 2009

2009-12-02T23:31:00.001-08:00

I slept like a log last night.

Dream:

All I can remember from this is going into the basement of my old house in Illinois to help Dave with laundry. There was a lot more too it, but I was so out of it when I woke up this morning that I can't recall anything else. I would've skipped the entry today because of it, but the image of Dave standing in my old basement working on laundry sticks out massively.

Dreams between 3am and 1:15pm on November 30th, 2009

2009-11-30T14:48:00.000-08:00

I've had several dreams that were interesting over the past few nights but they evaporated before I had time to write them down. One of them involved a small, grinning man whom I shared a bed with on the deck of a pirate ship. Another had something to do with me working for a porn magnate (probably Jackie Treehorn) at my old elementary school. Oh, well. That's the way the bee bumbles.

Dream:

Julia and I were walking through the extremely sunny landscapes of Africa dressed in our full wedding regalia. We were trying to find our way to where our wedding would take place, but we kept getting lost. We started out in a lightly-vegetated jungle with a map that wasn't of much help. I asked the random people scattered throughout if they could show me my destination, which was some African-sounding name that I can't remember outside of the dreamscape.

After we were put on the right track, we found a dusty road that lead us out of the forest and onto the Veldt. There were people walking up and down the path as well as people sitting or working around it. A group of white women walked passed us and said that Julia was too young for me (silly, because we're the same age). Julia found this offensive and I deflected it off on one of the other people in our entourage. On the subject of entourages, most of the people were supposed family members but I didn't recognize any of them.

The path started to go uphill, which caused me much duress about whether or not we would grow too tired to reach our wedding destination. The path forked downhill to a convenience store that we quickly hurried to. My buddy Dane was there, as well as a guy that I used to work with named Bret. Dressed in tuxedos, they were also on their way to our wedding. Dane bought a root beer for Julia and I could tell that it made her uncomfortable as she doesn't drink soda anymore. I took it for myself and offered to buy her a juice. My worry that I would have to pay a foreign transaction fee if I used my debit card in Africa was dashed when I saw that the man took American money. We were greatly relieved for the refreshment in the heat. The dream ended when the urge to pee roused me from the Land of Nod.

Dreams between 3:30am and 1:15pm on Thanksgiving 2009

2009-11-26T13:41:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've been able to remember my dreams as of late. I suppose I just haven't been sleeping long enough.

Dream #1:

I was driving home from work and spied the red and blue flashing of a police car. In real life, this fills me with insurmountable terror, yet in the dream I found it almost humorous. The officer was a balding older man with a light goatee and sunglasses (despite it being dark out). He asked me for my license, registration, and proof of insurance. I dug them up and gave them to him. He seemed very cranky about the whole ordeal, and went away without telling me why he pulled me over. I started to rouse, and the dream faded. I was happy for this - who the hell likes dreaming about being pulled over by the cops?

Dream #2:

I was a what I can only explain as the black equivalent of myself, and I was stranded in this complex with several other people in a horrible dystopian future. We were all fighting to escape, but I don't remember what we were fighting. Robots maybe, I don't know. I remember some of the people with me looked like superheroes, and one of them looked like Tarzan, yet spoke intelligently.

I remember a lot of running around on platforms that overlooked blasted landscapes and fire geysers and rusted metal. All but two of us went to go find an escape pod or ship or something. The other person with me was the spirit of a young black girl. The robot-things were after her and I fought them off with a long metal pipe. When the others came back, they had weapons and started fighting as well. I only remember the Tarzan guy swinging across the platform and burying a broadsword hilt-deep into the wall while trying to get a robot. He claimed that his miss was intentional, but I was skeptical.

When all of the robots were destroyed, everyone made for the escape pod. They said that someone had to stay behind, so I sacrificed myself for the greater good. Then I woke up. Happy Thanksgiving!

Dream between 3:30am and 12:30pm on November 21st, 2009

2009-11-21T18:17:00.000-08:00

My dreams have been barely memorable blips lately. The other night I dreamed that I was on the moon, and a huge green moon monster sat on the group of people I was with, squishing them into space goop. Dumb.

Dream:

I know that I had other dreams, but I couldn't remember them. In the only one I do remember, I'm watching an episode of Xena. A menacing creature was attacking Joxer the Mighty. It's body was obscured off-camera with the exception of a large grey tentacle. It was slapping at Joxer, who was blocking with his shield. Xena leaped up onto the tentacle and began stabbing it with a short blade of some fashion. The tentacle writhed around, threatening to throw her off. Some nameless Roman-looking soldier in a red cloak popped out and struck the tentacle with a heavy trident.

The battle went on for a bit before the monster was vanquished. The Roman guy was fatally wounded with a gouge in his side. Xena cast healing magic on it to no avail. It was sad.

Dreams between 1am and 2:30pm on November 17th, 2009

2009-11-17T14:57:00.001-08:00

I vaguely remember my dreams from the 16th. Something to do with going to Tom Waits' house. I'm sick again and had a fever last night. After sleeping all day, I feel a lot better. On to the dreams.

Dream Series:

I had the continuous fever dream of there being millions upon millions of little bits in all colors and shapes. They were itty bitty and continuously poured out from some unknown place, filling my field of vision. I believed that it was my job to count them or analyze them, and the endless number of them was driving me crazy. As the night went on and my fever decreased, the pieces began slowing and their numbers shrinking. By about 7am or so, they were almost completely gone. Random shapes would fly by when I closed my eyes trying to go back to sleep throughout the rest of my slumber, but nothing terribly annoying.

Dream #1:

All I can remember from this dream was me being in a building, playing some sort of game. A man that I work with, Steve, was hollering at some Asian guys who were on his team. I couldn't see him, but his voice was booming and he was exceptionally pissed off. He was shouting racist remarks at them, and said something about the Triads. That's all I remember.

Dream #2:

This dream was bittersweet. In it, I was in my old house in Illinois and Nana was still alive. She looked great and her hair was done up nice. She dressed in the clothes she would wear when she would work as a perfume model: a tan jacket with shoulderpads with an ornate, sparkly pin on her lapel, light grey slacks and dangly earrings. She was very happy to see me, of course, as it had been a long time since we had seen each other. Julia was there, and I remember her being in my room on the bed. Also present, for some strange reason, was a man named Patrick that I volunteered with for the Special Olympics, and Andrea. Andrea was laying down some ground rules for something, and telling us all to be careful of a yellow car at the front of the house and a black car at the back of the house.

I peeped out of the window and saw a yellow car parked right outside. There was a man sitting in it, and I think he was smoking a cigarette. I went out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where Nana was washing dishes in some contraption attached to the refrigerator. I went into the back hall and closed the back door, as people driving though the medical building parking lot that was behind our house would be able to see in through the screen door. I got a good view of the basement, which always scared me. There were boxes and clothes scattered about at the foot of the stairs. I let Nana know not to leave the back door open and relayed what Andrea said. She asked about the yellow car up front and I decided to go and ask the man in it why he was in front of our house.

I could see the car through the screen door, but when I walked out onto the front porch, the car was gone and it was snowing like crazy. There were two deer running down the street, their backs covered in snow. From the opposite direction came an enormous jackrabbit that ran by so fast we could feel the woosh of air. In the front yard there was another rabbit, about the size of a small dog or a large cat. It had a hump in its back like a camel. Nana and I were intrigued by it, and she got out her camera. It was a nice digital one, and as is expected with me and a digital camera, I wasn't sure how to work it properly. The camel-rabbit, intrigued by us as well, hopped very close. It kept hopping around, making it difficult for me to get a good picture of it. I was trying to get one of it looking straight at the camera, for that extra "awwwwww" factor, but I was looking at the LCD from a bad angle and couldn't see where I was shooting. The creature was making cute little cooing sounds, and Nana rubbed its ears. It was all very adorable.

We went in the house out of the cold, and I ran into the bedroom to share my excitement for snow. Julia was still sitting on the bed, with a blanket on her lap. Patrick was still there as well. I asked Julia if she liked Illinois better than Oregon, and she said yes. I came and sat in a chair by the bed, next to Patrick. He said that his son gave him a card from me, something I don't remember doing in the dream, and told him that I was a "star child". He said it with awe in his voice, like I was some sort of chosen one. How off was he, huh?

Patrick left, and I asked Julia if she would consider staying in the house with my grandma, and she agreed. I was thrilled, as there were so many things I wanted to ask Nana about, like the words to the song she used to sing to me as a kid. It goes without saying that I was anything but happy when I woke up.

Dream #3

I had this dream just before I woke up for the day. I had decided to go and visit Andrea and Jason. I was sick in the dream, and had a hard time focusing on driving. I kept wanting to do crazy things, like jerk the wheel or let off the gas, but I knew that to do so would almost certainly mean death. It didn't help that I was cuddled up in the seat and steering with a remote control.

When I eventually made it to Andrea and Jason's, I realized that I wasn't wearing any pants or undies. I was horribly embarrassed, and I remember this happening to me once before. I pulled my shirt down to hide my shame, and put some sort of lid over my crotch. Their front door was open and I could see them through the screen door. It was twilight out, and they didn't have any lights on. They were both sitting on the couch watching TV and their sons were playing with cars. I let myself in, greeted them, and asked if I could borrow pants. I told them that I was sick and that my head wasn't screwed on straight. Andrea seemed less than enthused to have one of her sons give me a pair of jeans. The boy grabbed the jeans for a moment, then went back to playing. There were baby barricades all over the house, blocking off me and the pants, and I couldn't very well climb over them in the state that I was in. Jason didn't say a word to me the whole time I was there, and they seemed more interested in watching TV than anything else. I thought, "Forget this", and wiped out the dream with a blue streak of lightning.

Dreams between 11:30pm on November 14th, 2009 and 9:30am on November 15th, 2009

2009-11-15T11:28:00.000-08:00

I could not remember dreams from the past two nights, but yesterday's experience was truly bizarre enough have been a dream.

I was volunteering with the Special Olympics bowling event and the regional championship was yesterday. On the way back up from Roseburg, the bus broke down just outside of Grant's Pass. While we were waiting for a replacement bus to come get us, we tried to order pizza. To our dismay, neither Pizza Hut or Domino's would deliver a pizza to a broken down bus on the side of the free way. The local police department was kind enough to pick the pizzas up for us. There was something extremely surreal in flashing police lights signaling that our pizzas arrived. On to the dreams.

Dream #1:

Captain Dave and I were in a toy store with multiple storeys. This was apparently a throwback to when I used to avidly collect Star Wars figures, as I was thrilled to see so many of them in the store available for purchase. Dave did something (or didn't do something) to cause the architecture of the store to shift, opening new passageways with different toys. That's all I remember.

Dream #2:

I was talking to actor Danny McBride about stomach parasites, as I believed that I had one. He told me that he handled his by punching himself in the stomach when he woke up, causing the parasite to make a moaning noise and knocking it out. I knew from pictures that the parasites looked like small hammerhead sharks, but from what Mr. McBride described, I deduced that no such beastie lurked in my intestinal tract.

Danny McBride's wife called for us to come downstairs, as she captured a bird that had killed a mouse. His wife was thin, blonde, and otherwise nondescript. She had placed the bird with the dead mouse still in its beak in a jar filled with other creatures that she had captured. I was surprised to see that the bird was the same size as the mouse. The bird looked dead but I had an inkling that the bird was just in a sort of stasis. That's all that I remember before I woke up.

Dreams between 4:30am and 1:15pm on November 12th, 2009

2009-11-12T13:26:00.000-08:00

I crashed so hard the night before that I don't remember any of my dreams. All I remember was waking up with a tenuous belief that I was made of sand. Here are this morning's dreams.

Dream #1:

In this dream, I was introduced to my real mother. I know who my real mother is in real life, but apparently this was not the case in the dream. My real mother was none other than Oscar-nominated actress, Anne Ramsey. It was kept a secret because I was locked in some kind of cocoon for years. I was shocked, as I didn't remember being in a cocoon. My life got flip-turned upside down!

Dream #2:

My uncle Brian had a son in this dream, a thin dark-haired boy. They planning on moving, but during the dream they were vacationing. They had invited us all to visit them at a beach somewhere. I remember Julia's aunt Sally being there, but I don't remember much of the festivities.

We ended up in a cabin/summer home that was filled with objects from my youth; toys, books, and the like. There was a trunk, long and deep as a coffin, that made Uncle Brian want to stay at this home. I was hesitant to allow it, because of all of my things being there, but I realized that they were the past and it was time to let go.

The dream ended with me having to go to work. I was taking a shower, but got into my car before I was finished. The shower head followed me, because in lieu of brushing my teeth I let the nozzle spray into my mouth to rinse my teeth off (I don't do this in real life!). I drove and parked to the side of the road where some kids were playing. They were bundled up like it was winter. I hoped they didn't see me spit my tooth-rinsing water out like a fountain into my backseat. Also, I was still nude from the shower, but no one could see me from the waist down. I pondered what the case would of been had I of been a woman. That would've caused quite a stir! Dreams are weird.

Dream between 1am and 5am on November 10th, 2009

2009-11-10T20:07:00.000-08:00

I'm not accustomed to waking up at 5 in the morning - in fact, I think it's the first time in my life that I had to do so. It was rather unsavory, but it was for a good cause. Julia had to have some lady maintenance and she's fine now, hopefully, provided that test results work out favorably. Good and warm energy her way!

Dream:

I was watching James Earl Jones on TV. In the dreamscape, he was famous for being a scary movie host, akin to Svengoolie or Elvira. As we were watching, he began to have a on-air meltdown for not having Christmas off. He ranted about wanting to spend time with his family, all the while dressed like Dracula. It went to another segment where he was pretending to be a baby in a bathtub, with a pair of fake legs in there with him. He was emphasizing his lines caustically and sarcastically. Poor James Earl Jones.

Dream between 2:45am to 9:30am on November 9th, 2009

2009-11-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

Dream:

I had a dream before this one, but I don't remember it. This dream had me as some sort of military badass. I single-handedly attacked an enemy base that was as strategically guarded as one would have been in a video game or movie - that is to say, not very well guarded at all. The guards were rather nondescript in terms of battle attire, they just wore black, but they had black paint on their faces in vertical streaks.

I rushed passed a building with guards shooting at me from the rooftop. There were guards behind some crates, with one of them manning a rather large machine gun (Google says it's an M60). I took that guard out and turned the M60 on the other bad guys, mowing them down. Oh, the power! The angles of it were limited, since it's mounted on that tripod thingy, so I abandoned it and ran behind some other crates. There was a sweater there that would make the guards less likely to see me; it was white with black on it, sort of like a Rorschach test.

I ran out from behind the crates to find more soldier guys. One of them had a hand saw, and I tried to fight him with my bare hands. It didn't work, so I ran away from that guy and took out some other guys. Behind them were more crates, and behind the crates and to the right was a tunnel. I rushed into the tunnel and found more bad guys to take down.

Julia's probably not going to like this part, but in the tunnel there was a blonde lady, a femme fatale, in a black dress and a cartigan (strange attire combo). She was going to try to seduce me, but I turned the tables and seduced her! I ended up luring her into a shower, where I got in. I tried to get her to remove her clothes, for military purposes of course - I wanted to make sure that she wasn't armed. She must've been armed, because she wouldn't undress. I felt bad for her because she seemed really nice, like she was just some mixed up kid who was conscripted into the army as a succubus as bait for the super-spy (or super military badass, such as my dream-self). Remorse or not, she was the enemy, and she had to go! So I broke off the showerhead and started to drown her in the spray. I remember shouting "Dynamite!" as I did this and not in the Jimmie Walker way, which was disappointing.

I objected to this display and started to pull away from the dream. It worked, because I don't recall anything after this.

Dream between 3am and 9:30am on November 8th, 2009

2009-11-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

Dream:

I woke up in the middle of this dream, but it continued when I fell back asleep. Once again, the details are fuzzy, but it had something to do with me being seen by others as strange for liking the idea of making my own clothes. I didn't actually make anything, I just liked the idea.

I went in a car but I don't remember driving anywhere. Captain Lopez was there, but I don't recall why. The alarm clock going off seeped into the dream as some sort of robot alarm that went off because people were revolting.

Dream between 1:30am and 10am on November 7th, 2009

2009-11-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

I konked out early while playing my DS and watching Julia play Dragon Age. Fun on a bun.

Dream:

I haven't had as vivid or as interesting of dreams since I was recovering from the flu, and this morning was no different. All I remember was that there were zombies, and I might have been one. Oh, boyski!

Dream between 4am and 9:30am on November 6th, 2009

2009-11-06T10:56:00.001-08:00

Dream:

I don't remember the details of the dream, just that there was something scary going on. I woke up while it was still dark and became startled by the oscillating fan. I guess I thought it was a person. Silly me.

Dreams between 3am and 1:30pm on November 5th, 2009

2009-11-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

I fell asleep on the couch for about a half hour after eating a lot of spaghetti, but I don't remember dreaming about anything.

Dream #1:

The only thing I remember about this dream is me trying to convince a small blonde child that certain types of animal poop were edible and good for you. He wouldn't believe me.

Dream #2:

There was a lot going on in this dream, but I scarely remember all of it. I was helping each one of my cousins, who are the children of my grandmother's brother, with unlocking some treasure or something. I remember using a knife to help one of my cousins fight off these weird goat-dog creatures. There was some sort of party going on with more members of my family - it could have been a holiday, or at a stretch a family reunion. There was something to do with umbrellas. That is all.

Dreams between 2:45am and 9:30pm on November 4th, 2009

2009-11-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

Dream #1:

In this dream, I discovered that Leo only married Jan as a front to catch her being a bad mother to Julia so that she could be taken away. Leo fell in love with Jan, however, and decided to defect from the Child Service Agency (why it is child service, I have no idea - Julia was an adult in the dream). When I called him out on being a phony, he revealed that he began working for the Child Service Agency again, two years ago, and that he was ready to call them in on Jan for being an unfit mother. We were all shocked about this, especially given that Jan certainly isn't an unfit mother. The dream ended with us all angry with Leo.

Dream #2:

There was a bomb in a building that I was trying to disarm. I ended up not disarming it, but it must have been a dud because I don't remember an explosion.

Dream #3:

I was a hitman-in-training. My mentor was an older man, bald, with a greying mustache. Our hideout was in an old warehouse. The details of the hideout interior are indescribably fuzzy.

At some point, we ended up killing a couple of guys and it took a very long time to dispose of the bodies. My mentor ended up leaving me to fend for myself against two targets. I ended up disabling them, but I did not want to kill them. I was too remorseful and began to feel sick to my stomach at the thought of killing them. I told them that I wasn't killing them because it would take too long to dispose of their bodies, but that I could not let them go because they would tell everyone about our hideout. I think they ended up joining us, but I don't remember.

The mentor came back and we started to talk about the Maltese Falcon. He was very happy that I had read this book, and began to show me these stone mannequins that he had created. As I was drifting in and out of sleep after my alarm clock went off, in the dream we were going to bring them to life with a device called a life tap. The mentor's life tap looked like a chisel, whereas mine looked like a cheese cutter with electricity instead of a metal wire. My mentor was thrilled to see this different device bring his mannequin to life. The mannequin moved in a disturbing fashion, like a marrionette.

Dream between 3am and 12pm on November 3rd, 2009

2009-11-03T12:41:00.001-08:00

Julia felt ill last night and went to bed early. I snuggled up next to her to play some Eternal Sonata, but kept nodding off. It was disappointing.

Dream:

I'm in some dream fabricated house again. In the beginning of the dream, I remember Julia and I each getting our own pizza. It had lots of sausage and cheese, and was really delicious. I almost ate the whole thing.

I assume we went to bed in the dream, because I remember being woken up by a car door and seeing that it was Mama Rose, a darling woman I used to work with at AORN. She was driving through and stopped off at our place to see if we had a wheelchair for her husband. Apparently he had gone deaf and that somehow meant that he could no longer walk around on his own. I was sad to disappoint her, but I let her know that we had a dolly that she could hoist him around in a la Hannibal Lecter. I had to check with Julia first to make sure it was okay to loan out the dolly.

As I started to go back toward the house, Rose shouted for me not to go in the front, that her family was in there. I found a little boy fighting with a young girl over something in the front room, and they were surprised to see me. Rose didn't want to leave the kids in the car, so she snuck them in the front. I was very worried that Jan would come out and see these children tussling in her house, and wouldn't you know it, she came out as soon as they knocked over a vase, breaking it.

We ended up getting them to leave, but I don't remember if we gave the dolly to Rose. We don't even own a dolly in the really real world.

Dream between 2am and 9:30am on November 2nd, 2009

2009-11-02T10:34:00.000-08:00

I couldn't remember any of my dreams from the night before, but here is last night's dream.

Dream:

In the dream, I was getting over being sick. The house that I was resting in wasn't familiar, and I remember laying in something like a hammock. My brother was there but, as dreams are wont to do, he didn't look like my brother.

I spent the majority of the dream talking on the phone with someone that I only knew from the Internet. The conversation was exceptionally boring, and I watched TV through most of it.

At some point in the dream, I remember there being lots of school desks. The end.

Dream between 4:30am and 10am on Halloween 2009

2009-10-31T10:01:00.000-07:00

I slept pretty hard and don't remember much of anything.

Dream:

It had something to do with a video game, but I can't remember what. I remember someone saying that they were going to watch my Xbox 360 gamertag to see if the game doesn't change. If the game doesn't change, I'll get fired from my job. It didn't make any sense.

I also remember being in some sort of carpet store, and Curtis from work was there. He was talking about a turtle, I think. That's all I remember. Pretty crappy dream adventures today. Happy Halloween!

Dreams between 2:30am and 12:30pm on October 30th, 2009

2009-10-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

I took today off to help Leo with the Ghastly Garage, so I got to sleep in. Very nice.

Dream #1:

I began sneaking out at night and visiting this apartment that my friend Jason and my friend Josh from work were renting out for their sexploits. They would invite a girl back and both have at her. I was sneaking over there to get in on the action - sloppy thirds, eww. I never actually got any "action" from any of the random dream skanks (thank goodness), so I stopped going.

The most unsettling thing about this dream was that even though I never did cheat on Julia, I was completely alright with doing, even in some gross sex-den. That's shameful, shame on that dream version of myself.

Dream #2:

This dream started off with me in a bar with an atmosphere that was more like Chuck E. Cheese's. I guess that would make it more like Dave & Buster's. At any rate, there were college-age guys filling the seats. There was a back area that lead to this wooden attic-type place. It seemed more like a roof, but in the dream it didn't feel as though it was out in the open.

A man, a woman, and I were tasked to clear that area of ghosts. I knew that there was a ghost because I saw it a few times out of the corner of my eye. The two with me were accomplished ghost hunters, and I was a neophyte. This dream was also weirdly sexual, because the woman and the man both wanted to have sex with me, and each other, because they believed it would drive the ghost to them. With the woman, it was more disturbing because she wanted to use this tool on me that looked sort of like a box cutter without the blade. Very unsavory. At some point in the dream I ended up looking at a manga that had rather sexual imagery.

I don't remember how this transitions, but we end up chasing the ghost into a ladies room. There was a fight, and I remember a bald guy being there. We won but I ended up cutting my toe. I hastily mopped the blood up with some paper towels, smearing it around more than anything. I was more concerned about getting some sort of infection or disease from the bathroom floor.

That's really all I can remember. All in all, I could have done without these uncomfortably sexual dreams.

Dream between 2:30am and 9:30am on October 29th, 2009

2009-10-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

I slept almost through the night, but Julia didn't. She woke up around 7 o'clock, thinking about Perfect Strangers.

Dream:

Work had just implementing a training program. We didn't go to training classes, it was more video-game-y in that we had a training ledger that we would write down skills to learn, and the skills would be learned over time.

I was requested by the higher-ups to keep an eye on certain employees to make sure that their training doesn't exceed a certain point, as they were only supposed to be temporary. I had a full page full of training for the first day, and I guess that was my cap until I learned some new skills.

I remember there being an old mechanic with wispy white hair and big glasses. He was advice-dispensing and kindly. He gave me something that I can't remember.

I was assigned to work with inner-city youth. I ended up chasing them around for a bit, talking to them and so-forth. I remember chasing a group of them through a park, and there was an enormous slide that formed a big circle. The way it worked was that you ran across it repeatedly until you built up enough speed to slide across, so that you were sliding in a circle. If that doesn't make much sense when explained, that's because it didn't make much sense in the dream. I remember sliding on my stomach, but there was a memory I had in the dream of someone saying that one was not supposed to slide that way.

When I exited the slide, I spotted a little kid digging in the playground sand. I plopped next to him and watched what he was doing. As I sat there, I found buried in the sand a long toy train, with the train cars held together with magnets. Each train car was cartoonishly anthropomorphized, sort of like in Thomas the Tank Engine. I was very excited to find the train, however the little boy told me that it was "common" and that the reason that the traincars were buried in the sand was because everyone already had them. But I didn't have them, so I kept them. My train! Mine!

Nearby, I found a blue duffel bag to carry them in. In the bag were stuffed animals - one of them was a very adorable and bright blue cat. I was excited to find that and show it to Julia, as she would likely be delighted by its cuteness. I began to feel guilty taking these toys, so I told myself that I would report them as found items at the lost and found, and return them if anybody claimed them. If there was more to the dream, I don't remember it.

Dreams between 2:30am and 9:30am on October 28th, 2009

2009-10-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

I slept like a log last night, and here are the result:

Dream #1:

The first dream started as Uncle Pat and I digging around in the basement of our old house in Illinois for something important. Uncle Pat was drunk, which I found normal in the dream because his dream-self was an alcoholic. The basement had a wooden cellar door that lead into the backyard, a feature that our current Roseburg house has but the real Illinois house did not. There were boxes scattered about that I was tasked to look through while Pat looked through some of his own. After a time, we decided to stop and "join the others" upstairs - up until that point, I thought it was just he and I.

So we go upstairs, and there's literally a family reunion going on. Uncle Pat wanted to meet me for drinks at a local bar later on, and he set off on foot. I had an idea of what the bar looked like and all I remember was a lot of cobblestones.

I don't remember much of this "reunion" other than me sitting in my grandmother's room, looking out of the window at everyone eating at tables set up in the garden. This was unusual because the Illinois house was just one floor, whereas I was clearly on a second floor peering down into the garden - another mixture of the Roseburg house and the Illinois house. Symbolism is in there somewhere, I'm sure of it.

While I'm watching my family from afar, a group of about seven black women appear. All but two of them are dream created - one is my cousin Lisa's mother-in-law, and the other is my old boss from King Soopers whose name I can't remember.

As an aside, I worked for the service desk of a Kroger grocery store chain called King Soopers for about six months when I lived in Denver. One of the managers was the woman in the dream, and she was rather unpleasant. She was in her late 20's, early 30's, was tall with short hair, and always wore some type of ladies' suit. She wasn't very nice at all. Her lesbian girlfriend rudely demanded her checks cashed for free at the service desk. Karma would have it that the two of them were involved in a collision while on a motorcycle - the girlfriend died, and the boss suffered brain damage. So it goes.

So back to the dream. Here's my old boss whose name I can't remember, standing with a group of women who are calling for me. I answer them out of the window, and they all start hollering at me. The shouting dies down and someone demands that I pay my old boss $75 for slander. I guess telling the truth about people being mean is slander.

At this point, I remember Uncle Pat calling from the bar. While I was talking to Pat, the angry women had made their way into the house and were standing in the hallway outside of my grandma's room. I put Pat on hold and went out to confront them. They were livid about this ridiculous scenario, and I was upset that they were not considering family first (me being the family, not my bitchy ex-boss). They ended up leaving, and Uncle Pat hung up. I don't remember what happened after that.

Dream #2:

In this dream, I was sitting at a dining room table with a group of people that I didn't know. Uncle Pat was there and he was sober. Though this dream felt tied to my previous dream, he wasn't an alcoholic. I think the people at the table were friends of his. We were staying at the home of the dinner host, who looked a lot like actor John Mahoney. There was a knock at the door, and the dinner host announced that it was his daughter. I was apprehensive to answer the door, and suspicious of who was on the other side. As I was looking through the peephole, the door abruptly opened and a short, fat, blonde woman in a tie-dyed shirt and sweat pants came in. She had luggage and was confused as to who I was. I remember waking up and rolling over after this, but I don't remember any dreams afterward.

Dream between 2:30am and 9:30am on October 27th, 2009

2009-10-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

I slept very well last night, and don't remember much of my dreams. I only remember this one clearly:

Dream:

My friend Marcie was giving me a ride home in her minivan for some reason. We stopped off at Blockbuster on the way to pick up some movies for her parents. I got something for Julia and me to watch, but I can't remember what. They had a drive-through movie pick-up - an ingeniously lazy design that I'm surprised video stores haven't come about.

Marcie dropped me off, but I then decided that I needed to go back out to the hobby store in the strip mall. Though I was definitely in Oregon (it was overcast, a good sign), the strip mall was Almar Plaza, straight out of South Holland, IL. One strange thing, the hobby shop had train tracks that ran along the walls of the whole mall. I don't remember why I went into the shop, but I left promptly after arriving. I remember wearing boots, and feeling very tall.

As I was leaving, I saw my friend Deserae and her boyfriend Tim standing on the curb. She had dyed her hair blonde and cut it short, and she was wearing a lot of make-up. Tim was dream-generated - I'd never met him before, but I shook his hand and announced that I was happy to meet him again. We gabbed for a bit, and I was under the impression that Deserae was pregnant.

I arrived home, and it was the house I grew up in Illinois. Julia was sitting in the chair in the living room. She said that she was jealous of how much money Deserae made, given that she was younger than us. I reassured her that such a thing wasn't a big deal, and that the reason why Deserae made more than us was because she worked sales. Julia found that an acceptable reason. The dream ended there.

Dreams between 2:30am and 3:45pm on October 26th, 2009

2009-10-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

I slept an extraordinary long time in effort to get well. I had a lot of dreams but can only remember snippets of three clearly.

Dream #1:

I was playing the original NES Frankenstein - and there's a reason for this, as I had tried playing it on an emulator not long ago for nostalgia's sake. Anyway, in the dream I thought I was playing the NES version, but it was some next-gen remake where I was Frankenstein's Monster. Typically, that's what people refer to him as, or just The Monster, or sometimes Frankenstein. No, in the game his name was Pine something, I think it was Pine Grub. Stupid, yes. So I, as Frankenstein's Monster (Pine Grub), was running down this gloomy, overcast path through a marsh until the ground became shallow water. There were leeches that I had to fight, but mostly I found I could just run past everything.

So I made it to the boss, which was a set of two posts, each covered in a swarm of insects. I would punch the posts and the bugs would swarm around me and into my mouth - blech. I thought then I should punch the posts while they were bare, but no dice. I eventually died and said forget it.

The only other detail of the dream was the presence of actress Rachael Harris. She informed me that she had beaten the original NES Frankenstein, and I was shocked because that game is notoriously difficult to beat. So then I started playing the original game again, and fought passed the He-Monster and the She-Monster. I had something like 10 lives accumulated by that point. I don't remember anything else passed this. I'm tired of video game related dreams.

Dream #2:

What ho, a non-video game dream! I'm aged, about 50-ish, and am an author. I had just driven from wherever I lived to wherever it was that my daughter went to school. My daughter was short, thin, a light blonde , and a bit plain. I don't remember what she was studying.

I remember stopping at this trailer on the side of a dirt road that someone had converted into a mini-mart. This is the second time I've been to this fictional location in the dream-scape - the first time was a few weeks ago when I stopped off there before work, only to realize that I was going to be late. Anyway, I bought something to drink and continued on.

I finally reached my daughter's school and watched her give a presentation on something. There was this huge diorama of a city on a hilltop that she had created. She gave it to me after the presentation and I was very thankful to have it as she and I weren't very close.

I don't remember if I was leaving town, or what, but I went to the grocery store and for some reason took that diorama with me. I kept leaving it on a blank shelf, which then was moved by workers who were working on redesigning the store. I kept having to chase down the diorama. That's all I remember.

Dream #3:

This is just a snippet of a longer dream, I'm sure. I was walking with a teenage couple, I guess because I just love being a friggin' weirdo! No, really, they were friends of mine. I don't know if I was a teenager or not. Maybe just the weirdo thing. Anyway, we were taking the way I normally drive home through the neighborhood. Instead of houses, everything was walled up, so it became an open-roofed tunnel. Once we arrived at my house, I found that Leo and several other men were packing up all of the family's stuff into this huge storage facility that turned out to be a boat that was going to sail for three months. Crap in a hat, I was on the boat at the time it launched! I woke up after that.

I don't want to jinx myself by saying that I feel better. Hopefully I won't require naps today to survive.

Dream between 9pm and 11:10pm on October 25th, 2009

2009-10-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

I konked out again, this time playing Eternal Sonata. The dreams were looped, which leads me to believe that my fever came back.

Dream:

I was tasked to find my friend Ken and his wife to deliver a message. I continuously snuck into their house, which was elaborately furnished and exceptionally comfortable looking. I was part of a group of classic looking guardsmen - pikes, leather armor, sallets. After the third time, I took some of the other guards with me. After the sixth time, I happened upon Ken's wife. She explained to me that she and Ken would be traveling, possibly moving, as she was let go from her job. She was hesitant to talk about it, but she confirmed that she will work at a bank.

After that, there was a period of deep sleep and then the dream kicked back up. I was just standing guard at a three-forked hallway, with my back to the third entrance. There was rebellion going on, and I was helping the rebels escape. I suddenly jolted awake from this dream, presumably from being stabbed in the back. Lesson learned, guardsmen, don't stand with your back to an open door.

Dream between 5pm and 6:30pm on October 25th, 2009

2009-10-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

This cold is kicking the crap out of me, so I've been laid up in bed. I started watching The Dark in HD, some Welsh scary movie. It was a bit boring, so I took a nap for a while. I woke up a few times during it to go to the bathroom or blow my nose, and Julia came in once to check on me. The dream I had never changed.

Dream:

I was running around in a house not unlike the one featured in The Dark, trying to solve the case of a murdered daughter (a bit unlike the plot of The Dark). I kept seeing clues as flashing symbols that I eventually determined was a drop of poison in a cup of tea. And there you have it, the mystery was solved. Some guy kept trying to stop me from figuring out, but I was able to shake him.

I then saw myself in bed, and a woman was looming over me, whispering something intelligible. I didn't really make out what she looked like, but at first I thought it was Julia coming in to check on me. I experienced sleep paralysis, something I rarely succumb to. All I could manage was a twitch until I bolted upright in the bed, screaming. What a lousy nap.

I stayed awake and watched part of some David Bowie vampire movie called The Hunger on LOGO. It was crappy, and I changed it back to the encore presentation of The Dark. It was depressing, don't bother with it.

Dreams between 3:30am and 12:35pm on October 25th, 2009

2009-10-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

My dreams were rather disappointing. Julia and I had played Tales of Vesperia before bed, and I was feeling the adverse effects of my flu turning into a cold. I blame that for my lack of dream creativity.

First Dream Series:

This grouping of dreams lasted until about 7:30-ish this morning. In the dream, I was playing Tales of Vesperia. That's it. I woke up several times during these dreams to blow my nose or cough but when I would nestle back into bed, the dreams would continue. I grew fed up.

Eventually, in my dream, I began yelling at my dream to stop being the dream that it was.

"The Xbox isn't even on!" I shouted. "We can't save the game progress!" Whatever it was that was playing the game at that point was represented as these long, flowing trails of orange specks that whirled about and talked with drawn-out vowels. When I say talk, the only thing I remember any of them saying is, "Heeeeeey." At any rate, I would shoo them away but before long they would be back. It was very frustrating.

Around the 7:30am mark, my brain became fed-up and a bit lucid. I started summoning random people into the game to screw it up - George Lopez and his TV mother Bennie, some He-Man guys, Optimus Prime. The only ones I remember sticking around were George and Bennie, who were so abrasive at shooing away the orange specks that they never came back, and neither did the Tales of Vesperia dreams. I'm going to have to write them a thank-you letter.

Unique Dream:

I say that this was a unique dream, but parts of it leaked into the dream series that followed. In this dream, Julia and I were staying in a dark 1800's mansion. There was no electricity, only candlelight. There were secret panels, one of them being in a grandfather clock. The only other details I remember about the mansion was Julia hunched over a writing desk jotting something down with a fluffy quill pen.

The quest in the dream was for me to retrieve a birthday present for Julia, and time was running out because, gasp, today was her birthday! The details are hazy, but I remember going to a mall and finding some random doo-hickey that vaguely resembled a small engine. I don't know what it did. Why did I even buy the damn thing? The dream ends there.

Last Dream Series:

In the first dream of this series, I was a neutral scout amidst a war between navy-blue armored knights who believed in darkness and golden armored knights who believed in the sun. Neither side was inherently good, neither was inherently bad - what do you know? Just like the really real world! Anyway, it was my job to spy on either side and report it back to some unknown figure. I don't remember that detail, I just remember following this long dirt path between the frontlines. The foot soldiers for either army were children in mechanical suits that made them of adult strength and size.

The army of darkness had their children in suits that made them look like sleek, dark blue, bipedal robots. The masks they wore were sort of Darth Vader inspired with the same sort of mouth ventilation, but they had a large lens over their right eye, like an over-sized mechani-monocle, that they used to see long distances.

The children of the sun wore translucent suits that remind me of Robbie the Robot, or more like the Space Phantom from Scooby-Doo - they were big and clumsy-looking. You can see their normal faces through the gold-tinted dome on top of the suit, but their little bodies were obscured by the golden liquid that flowed throughout the suit.

As I was skulking about, I happened upon two child soldiers that wouldn't fight each other, y'know because kids are stubborn. This is war, kiddies, get to the killin'! So I took it upon myself to protect those li'l rascals. We found some cloaks or something to put over them, and we continued to spy around.

We passed a few child guardians for the dark side but they let us pass, good on 'em, and eventually happened upon this chalice sitting on a rock and looking very important. It was very ornately designed, as though it were designed for the lips of royalty. There was some liquid in it, so the dark kid took a sip out of it (I guess he removed his helmet, but I didn't see). He proclaimed that it was delicious and that we needed to take it back to my boss. The dream ended there when I woke up to blow my nose.

When I went back to sleep, I was still in that dream reality, dark versus light, but I wasn't a spy. Depending on when I would wake up and fall back asleep, I was fighting for either side, launching catapults or firing guns. Sometimes I was getting items for people, and to bring back to my unique dream, I had to get a birthday present for my friend Jason in Korea.

The dreams became very much like a strategy RPG, as sometimes there were grids, sometimes there were paths, it was a lot less boring than the Tales of Vesperia dreams so I was fine with it. Those dreams lasted until I woke up. The lesson learned here is not to play too many video games before bed when you're sick.

Dreams between 4:30am and 2:20pm on October 24th, 2009

2009-10-24T15:36:00.001-07:00

I have set free this blog from stasis and redesigned it in the vein of a dream journal. I often lose interest in blogging, but I never lose interest in sharing my strange dreams. This is really for my own benefit, but that's a good kind of selfishness because the majority of my dreams will be boring. Here are this morning's dreams as I can remember them.

Dream #1:

The family and I were preparing for a Halloween party, however the house that we were living in was completely dream fabricated - I'd never been inside of it before in the really-real world. The yard was large and strewn with junk.

It was sometime in the afternoon, and guests started to arrive. I didn't know who half of them were, which I found odd because I didn't advertise the party to the public. I noticed an abnormal amount of bald-headed women and children among the party-goers, all of them very short. The people that I did know, I only knew in the dream - more dream fabrications.

Whenever I attempted to don my costume (I was dressing as Rorschach of Watchmen notoriety, as I plan on adopting his disguise this year), someone would request that I find more soda, or take care of this guest, or that guest. It was after 6pm when I was finally able to get my costume on, only to realize that no one purchased or brought any candy to hand out to the guests/trick-or-treaters. During this dream, there was a great sense of stress and exasperation which reached its pinnacle at this point. Not wanting to remove my outfit, I removed just the mask and made my way outside to make a dash for Walgreen's to snab some candy.

As I was walking to my car, I saw that my Uncle Mike and Aunt Lynn, along with their family, had driven all the way from Indiana to take part in our Halloween party. I was so excited to see them and my cousins that I was nearly in tears. I gave them all a big hug.

There was a time lapse in the dream where it was now the end of the party. Everyone had gone home except the abundance of bald-headed party-goers. I found them disturbing and was upset that I could not get them to leave. The children ran throughout the house, touching some things and knocking other things over. One of the children, an East Indian, continuously grunted as he scampered to-and-fro. The dream ended before I could resolve the baldy infestation.

Dream #2:

In this dream, it is common knowledge among Roseburglars that a Korean husband and wife drive around town in a white car while their two adolescent sons drive behind them in a child-sized red car. As such, drivers are very courteous to make sure that they do not get in between the two cars.

The Korean family was driving down Stephens, right after it branches off downtown into the two one-way streets. My friend T-Party, driving the opposite direction, turned onto Stephens as the Korean family was driving by. In effort to get between the mommy-daddy car and the little-kiddy car, T-Party smashed into the little-kiddy car. I was standing in outside of Horizon Mazda, brushing my teeth (I found this odd in the dream, because I wasn't near a sink), and saw the whole thing.

In defense of the children, onlookers began pouring out from buildings to holler at T-Party, and some of them began fist-fighting with him. I was about to join the fray when I saw that it wasn't some normal hoodlum who caused the damage, but my very own buddy! I couldn't fight him, but at the same time I didn't feel right about stopping the others from doing what they thought was right. It was upsetting.

A dream-segue later and I'm standing in a building with Steven, a manager from work. He was moving boxes around and we were talking about how Travis wouldn't be at work any time soon. The dream ends here.

Dream #3:

I'm lying on the couch in our normal Roseburg house, watching Saturday Night Live for some reason (I never watch that show anymore; it went belly-up years ago). There's a Halloween party sketch going on. The only costume I remember is someone pretending to be Jay Leno dressed up as the Joker. I thought that was pretty funny - Jay Leno as the Joker. As dreams often work, what I saw on television seeped into dream-reality and Jay Leno Joker is in our kitchen, yuckin' it up with my mother-in-law Jan. My wife Julia is in the bathroom, and is thus spared from such a sight.

The dream focuses on a commercial for a new show on Comedy Central. It has something to do with giant toddler-people fighting giant monsters, like Godzilla I think. The details of the show are hazy, but it didn't seem funny - I suppose that's on par for Comedy Central's quality these days.

At any rate, after that ad, they show a scene with a very scribbly looking cartoon man standing on the ledge of a building with a sentient double-bladed axe. He's going to commit suicide, either with the axe or by jumping. The scribble decides to jump with the axe, but as he does so the camera is revealed to be an alien who abruptly fires a tractor beam to rescue them. The suicidal scribble began bickering with the axe about how he should've used it to kill himself instead of jumping, and the axe was mad at the scribble for taking him along for the plunge. The alien laughs a deep, bellowing laugh and tells the scribble and his axe that he is going to kill them anyway. There is just enough time to register the look of shock on the scribble's face before he and his axe are obliterate by the alien's destructo-beam.

In the dream, I thought that scene was one of the funniest things ever. When Julia came out of the bathroom, I explained the commercial to her - she knew about it, as we watched it together earlier in the evening and I only gave a mild chuckle. I couldn't believe that, and cited that I must have been dozing off at the time. At this point, I woke up and started the day.

Swampfoot!

2005-12-18T21:13:00.000-08:00

I'm at work, and are my feet ever swampy. I really need to clean my boots... however how does one cleans boots? Do I dry clean them? I can't stick them in the washer. Maybe a hose and soap? Such a conundrum.

The fear of blood tends to create the fear for the flesh

2005-10-06T03:04:00.000-07:00

A damaged Julia and a bored T. J. combine to form a new journal entry. Whee?

Many a deed has transpired since I left this to rot in the figurative quagmire of neglect. Most recently, my trusty sidekick Julia and I lead Harry Mason (Not to be confused with bloated detective Perry Mason) through the nightmarish New England town of Silent Hill. Finishing the original Silent Hill opened a lot of information to me about Silent Hill III, the first game of the series we played together. I decided to take the Memento approach and do the games backwards. Silent Hill II was still my all-time favorite. James Sutherland reminds me of myself, for some bizarre reason.

We've watched so many movies since my last update. I read over all of my prior blurbs and felt a gentle tug to continue to do them. We've seen so many movies since then, but the last two we watched were Thir13en Ghosts and Nosferatu. I'd seen Thir13en Ghosts in the theatre a few Halloweens ago, however Julia'd never had the pleasure of watching twelve ghosts terrorize a mechanical house. Watching it made me feel very silly about finding it as frightening as I did those years back. I'm such a pansy 'fraidy cat, it's sickening.

Nosferatu is still creepy eighty-three years after it was shot. Can one imagine a film being that old? And whatever happened to German filmmaking? They were the pioneers, the trailblazers, the pilgrims. The last movie that I can think of Deutcheland squeezed out was Run, Lola, Run. It appears they decided to position their focus on car development. Now that I ponder upon the subject, it might have something to do with World War II. Lousy Nazis - so misinformed, yet such sharp dressers.

I've been nigh-addicted to the classic rock station here. My penchant for loud, aggressive music is starting to wane. I'm finding Rush tolerable - if T. J. from three years ago heard that, he'd of made empty threats of ass-beatery and tossed hollow insults in mock anger. Rush's drummer really is quite impressive, it's just Geddy Lee's voice is insufferable. And the Alice Cooper show in the evening is the most entertaining show on radio. I always thought Alice Cooper was funny, watching him on pop-culture interview shows on VH1 or what-have-you; I'm quite fond of his particular brand of humor.

Last Friday I exited Chunk without putting him into park. How irresponsible can one person be to do that? My head is permanently in the clouds, I fear, as I backed into our trash can. In haste, I lept from the car to pick it up and roll it back near the garage. The neighbor across the street called at me about my car getting away. Looking up, I dashed after it and positioned myself behind it in attempt to stop it Superman style. Chunk batted me away and as my mind raced, fearing he would crash into Julia's red Corsica. Slack-jawed in horror and relief, his wheel was turned slightly and he curved into the brick-laid rise separating the lawn from the sidewalk. The incident chipped the barely-noticable top portion of the brick off and made Chunk wobble on sharp curves or bumpy roads.

Earth is a bizarre animal.

Brain the size of a planet

2005-10-06T02:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't felt a rather unshakable sadness for some time. I had a somewhat alright day, I even went out with Julia and some friends for drinks. Somehow a little sadness goblin attached itself to me and is sapping my happy away.

I haven't updated this in a while, dually due to lack of interest and free time enough to chit-chat my inner-thoughts away. Having the doldrums makes me reflective, and being reflective makes me want to record thoughts and such.

Rambling on as I am, I just thought I'd record that at this particular moment, I'm feeling a bit depressed.

Breaking news

2005-08-24T21:15:00.000-07:00

We had a kitten, but the neighbor's dog killed it. The end.

Jackie Paper's a little bastard, that's what!

2005-06-23T03:41:00.000-07:00

Why didn't anybody tell me that "Puff the Magic Dragon" was such a sad song? I just read the lyrics when searching for Cookie Monster's "C is for Cookie" song. The dragon is forgotton and quasi-dies at the end. What a horrible song for children to sing! I'm about to start crying I'm so sad about that poor dragon.

Holy A-list cast, Batman!

2005-06-21T21:01:00.000-07:00

Batman. Yes, that's right, the subject for this evening's discussion is Batman Begins. The word "awesome" is a term I throw around very liberally to things such as Girlscout cookies and particularly good episodes of Aquateen Hunger Force. But awesome is the only term to describe the new Batman movie.

At one time, fans could only dream of a good Batman movie. Don't get me wrong, the two Tim Burton ones were well-done, and the one with Mad Martigan (I can't spell his real name, Val Kilmner? Kilnmer? Kilmer? I'm too lazy to look it up) was alright. The one with Arnold Schwartzenegger was beyond bad. Batman Begins was everything a good Batman movie, nay, a good film all on it's own, should be. The acting was superb (Michael Kane and Morgan Freeman, c'mon! Throw Rutger Hauer into it, and you got a hum-dinger), the plot was amazingly intricate.

I was surprised at how cool a Batman movie could be, and how well done. The best thing was how it built Batman from the begining (aptly named the title is, yes? Hmm?), like they did in Spider-Man and to an extent the X-Men. He's not just Batman, fighting criminals and not getting sex from beautiful women. He's some rich guy who's parents were killed seeking revenge that finds every vengeance-seeker's dream. Batman nor the villains were the main focus as they have been in the prior movies. It was more like a real movie, with subplots that wove together at the end. The focus was more on Batman adjusting to being Batman, like in Spider-Man. The Scarecrow's fear-effect was absolutely delightful. It was all marvelous, and even more marvelous was the cameo of Zsasz! Zsasz! Not pivotal enough of a villain to make main-stage, but cool enough to receive a nod. I'm sure Joe was thrilled. It's funny that he popped up, as I was just recently telling Julia about him, for she wrote a story that involved a character with a trait akin to Zsasz's insane habit of self-mutilation. That was a damned good story, by the way. As damned good as Batman? Find out next time! Same Bat-Time! Same Bat-Channel! Nah-nah nah-nah nah-nah nah-nah naaaah!

And the bunny shat his organs out for hours, and still did not die

2005-06-21T20:29:00.000-07:00

I've been heinously busy lately. Work sucks up most of my time especially since the schedule I'm to adhere is obnoxious (11:30 to 9). I have very little time to do things during the week, and my days off are Monday and Tuesday. I spend most of my off-time filling it with things I can't do on my work days and catching up on sleep. Also, having the Hollywood Video superpass is also a time-taker-awayer. We've watched so many movies, it would be ridiculous to list everything I liked/disliked about them all, so I shall be reduced to a blurb.

The Godfather was definately worthy of the greatest movie of all time. The plot was intricate and the ending was fantastic.

Braveheart wasn't as laden with Mel-odrama (get it? Mel Gibson? Mel-odrama? You have no sense of humor!). Again, it had a good plot and some fine acting, but I can see why it wouldn't be for everybody. At least they spared us the gore of watching him disembowled, that would've been a bit too Faces of Death (take a hint, Passion of the Christ!)

Audition was a disturbing Japanese suspense/horror that must be watched - any explaination would ruin it. Julia found it confusing, but I understood it. Me smart!

Danny Deckchair had Rhys Ifans of Notting Hill and Little Nicky fame. It was very much a fairy-tale romantic comedy (but Australian!) where he literally flies off in a deckchair with dozens of balloons attached to it. He starts a new life much better than his own and meets a girl much more innocent than the one he's already with.

Desk Set was refered to us by Uncle Pat. Another romantic comedy with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn set in the late 50's where the world of reference was getting a boost through technology, namely an "electronic brain". It was sweet, and there were a lot of funny bits.

Diabolique was an old French film wherein the wife of a despicable man and her mistress plot to murder him. I can't say more, because there was a disclaimer at the end of the film that forbid me to more.

The Phantom of the Opera was an overly dramatic musical with lots of characters singing their lines to each other. Don't see it unless you like overly dramatic musicals with lots of characters singing their lines to each other. Julia liked it, I thought it was alright - not at all what I expected. The costumes and sets were well-done, but Mini Driver's big face was in it too much (I'm not a big Mini Driver fan).

The Stepford Wives (the remake) was very goofy and unbelievable. It left me very confused at the end to what exactly the Stepford Wives were; one will have to see it to understand the confusion. The deleted scenes (one of which was very entertaining) spelled it out exactly that they were robots, however the movie itself lead one to believe they weren't exactly. Anyway, it had Christopher Walken in it, that's all that matters. Hullo!

Team America: World Police was great. Trey Parker and Matt Stone know how to make a political statement zainy and hilarious. The marionnettes' facial expressions were great, it's just when it came to them walking, fighting, or pretty much doing anything at all, they looked ridiculous. It was awesome.

Suspiria was a semi-slasher flick done up by Italian horor-meister Dario Argento. The very best scene is in the begining; after that, the plot thins and gets even a bit silly towards the end. The bloodied, knife-wielding phantom at the end is very cool looking, though. I didn't give anything away by saying that I hope. Oh, well, not like you were going to see it anyhow.

This is Spinal Tap was the precursor to Christopher Guest's tragic mocumentaries, in case you've been living in a cave. It was very funny and well-done. I was fond of the song they sang about loving a girl with a big posterior.

Okay, I got that over with. On to the things in life that matter - adorable fuzzy things. Just today Julia and I saw two baby raccoons crossing the street together in broad daylight. I minorly held up traffic stopping to gawk and coo at them; they were so adorable! On the subject of adorable things that are fuzzy babies, Leo and Jan brought home another kitten from the 12th Street Asylum. It's black with a white chin, just Marco Polo, one of the cats we left in that horrid place (Thundercat being the other one - he found another home on his own accord). I or Julia will post a picture of Contessa (cute name, huh?) soon. She's not more than 4 weeks old or so, but she loves people and loves to play. It took Duey a while before he became attached to people and wanting to play, while Pinto and Graybaby were too feral when we found them to truly bond with people. Pinto, like all the cats, generally only likes Jan. Graybaby's probably found a good home from the pound, she was very cute.

Right now we have The Manchurian Candidate, Garden State and House of Flying Daggers. Expect a report on them soon. Movies!

You've manacled me to by death bed, you Piccadilly whore!

2005-06-07T21:32:00.000-07:00

We have been on movie overload this past week, and I love it. Barring the films I've already chronicled in prior entries, we've watched "Psycho", "The Birds", "Anchorman", "Memento", "Club Dread", "Boogeyman", "Finding Neverland", "Hero" and "The Devil's Backbone". Right now we've "The Godfather" and "This is Spinal Tap". Movies aside, that's really all that's been happening. We saw a raving hobo shouting at a woman with a crutch on the sidewalk that may or may not have been a flasher. When he thrusted his arms out his pants either fell down, or it gave great notice to the fact he had already "dropped trou". Work is a bit stressful and I think I'm going to find another job. I really want a nine-to-five office job where it's secure and I know exactly what I'm doing. Finessing and fenagling people to buy computers from me isn't necessarily my calling. But that's for another time.

A short summary of my opinions on the following films:

Psycho:
I finally bore witness to Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece and I was surprised at how normal and likeable Norman Bates was. Also, I didn't expect the main character to be murdered not even halfway through the film. It was great, and definately unnerving. I could only wonder what audiences back then thought when they watched Psycho.

The Birds:
The whole time I was watching the Birds I thought it to be a zombie movie without the zombies. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if George Romero borrowed a lot of the same principals for Night of the Living Dead. But The Birds wasn't about zombies, it was about birds. Birds mysteriously flocking and murdering people. Honestly, it was pretty damned creepy. Birds are creepy in their own right with their "simple-yet-clever" quoth the Raven disguises. It seems perfectly feasible for them to launch a massive attack against humanity and come out the victor. I was taken off-guard on how it ended, but it was perfect. Chilling is an adjective (or adverb - who the hell knows?) that one often uses to describe horror movies in a generic manner, but it's very apt when describing the Birds. It did made me feel very uneasy, because you never knew when or why the attacks happened. Truly, the combined efforts of Hitchcock and Daphne Du Maurier were ingenious.

Anchorman - The Legend of Ron Burgundy:
I didn't have very high expectations for this one - it was an impulse rent based on the semi-recommendation of Jason. I was pleased to find it to be very hilarious in the silliest of manners. They cut out a lot of hysterical scenes, but hey, that's what the DVD's for, right? The fight scene one of the best parts of the movie, I'd say. I thought the whole thing was ridiculous, in a good way.

Memento:
Man, I don't even know what to say about this one. How's "It was awesome" sound? One can't talk about it without giving anything away, but the backwards storytelling was well done. The movie probably wouldn't of been as spectacular if not for that. I regret thinking it sounded "stupid" when Sarah rented it all those years ago. People can change so much...

Club Dread:
I've already seen this twice already, we rented it so Julia could see it. She thought it was the most ridiculous movie she'd seen. I think it went over well.

Boogeyman:
The Boogeyman in Boogeyman was very disappointing. They should've left the guy they'd CGI'd over as the actual Boogeyman. I liked the Boogeyman in that Outer Limits episode, how it pretended to be things to lure children away so it could eat them. It looked like a scary orangutan. The one thing that I liked is that you don't see the Boogeyman in Boogeyman until near the very end. As far as scary movies go, it was alright - it could've been way scarier. But hey, at least I didn't see it in the theatre, I'd of been really disappointed. Not much else to say other than that. Xena was in it, if that tells you anything about what direction her career has gone.

Finding Neverland:
It was excellent. Johnny Depp did an amazing Scottish accent, and he was such a character. I could relate to him with the whole "never wanting to grow up" aspect and using one's imagination to keep truth. It was tragic and beautiful all at the same time, and it's going to make seeing Peter Pan a whole lot different. I had to try very hard not to cry at the end. Very hard.

Hero:
Whoever told me Hero was crappy didn't know a good movie if it wanged them in the head with a croquet mallet. Hero was awesome, simply put. I can't say much about it without giving away the story, but it was a really great movie. Lots of fantastical fighting sequences, but nothing too outrageous.

The Devil's Backbone:
I like Guillermo del Toro. Mimic wasn't a masterpiece, but the Blade and Hellboy movies were cool. The Devil's Backbone really flexed his writing/directing talent (though we can't give him all the credit). It set in Spain during what I took to be involved in some civil war that seemed around the same time as World War II. It was about an orphanage and gold and a the ghost of a murdered boy. I thought the story was mostly about the ghost when I rented it, but the ghost is actually a very small part of the big picture. The acting was very good, and there were some pretty cool parts. There were sad bits and a creepy part or two, but all in all it was a very good movie.

That's about it. I put those together about as slap-dash as I could in the interest of boredom-conservation.

How can we not see that Pope Benedict is actually Darth Sidious?

2005-06-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

It's come to my recent discovery that the new Pope is Emperor Palpatine. Here is a side-by-side display of photographic evidence.

There is no tale quite as entertaining as death, misery and child labor

2005-06-03T00:17:00.000-07:00

"Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" was indeed one of the greatest family-oriented films I've seen in a long time. The mood was as rusty and unfriendly as an abandoned hatchet, yet just as delightful. The costumes and sets were spectacular (spectacular!) as was the cast. For some reason, Cedric the Entertainer found his way into the movie, but it is a Nickelodeon film. He's like the Brendan Fraser of the Oughts. Hah, take that!

The story, narration and what I assumed to be mostly add-libbing on the part of Jim Carrey was extraordinarily well-done. It could only of outdone itself had Tim Burton directed and Danny Elfman concocted the score.

Seek not the advice of the Internet Movie Database, which is essentially my bible. Literally as I write this, I'm chewing on an extremely tough cherry-flavored Airhead. Hang on. I hate it when the little bits get stuck in my teeth. My hand's sticky now. Aah, relief, the beast is conquered.

As I was saying, IMDB seems to be filled with fans of the book that hated the movie. "Count Olaf isn't supposed to be funny, he's evil!" Granted, I would've found Count Olaf to be much more dastardly and murderous (for he is indeed murderous) if he wasn't quite so Jim Carrey-ish. Regardless, the movie was fabulous. Then again, I only say that because I haven't seen the books - everyone knows what a nerd I am about sticking to the original premise of a story.

"Kingpin's not black, what are they trying to pull? Spider-Man doesn't shoot webs out of his wrists like that! Iceman's not a teenager! Why is Bane acting like a mentally retarded person?" Need I go on?

Rent Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events and enjoy the dark, delicious atmosphere.

Death is a jerk

2005-06-03T00:10:00.000-07:00

At least, he is in Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal". It would appear Death's role would not be filled by merely ushering the souls of the dead to their netherworld destination, but it also must be occupied by the actual murdering of one such unlucky chosen. The Seventh Seal has been parodied many a time in pop culture - so much so that when I saw it in the Foreign section of Hollywood Video I pointed and mockingly said to Julia, "Look, it's Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey". Indeed, that also makes sense why Death spoke with a Swedish accent.

Mockeries aside, the Seventh Seal was a fantastic movie. The acting, dialogue (or translation, as I should say) and direction were all superb in my opinion, as was the story. Aldous Block, surprisingly, went on to play such roles as the old guy from "Minority Report" and "What Dreams May Come", but most shockingly Ming the Merciless in the 80's ode to homosexuality, "Flash Gordon". How one could cast a Swede to play an Asian character, I'll never know.

I highly suggest one rents the Seventh Seal, not just to be on the inside of such "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" jokes, but to soak in such an iconoclastic, yet spiritual, story.

On a related note, I have enrolled myself in Hollywood Video's "MVP" club - which translates to unlimited rentals of three movies at a time for $10 bucks a month. I'm like a kid in a candy store.

Deviation from the plastic runners will result in death

2005-05-29T01:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, upon receiving my paycheck, I purchased three CDs, three comic books and a haircut. A real copy of Velvet Revolver's Contraband was sitting in the used section of the Music Lounge, so it of course found itself in my hands along with Metallica's "Load" and "Reload". I only own one Metallica, so I thought I'd instead own three.

The comic book store in town is very cool, and I live only a half-mile or so away from it. I made off with all three Filler Bunny comics, of which I finished reading today. They're ridiculous and so worth reading. It's a bit difficult to describe them - they seem to be about an adorable rabbit that perpetually is deprived of joy with random interjections of Jhonen Vasquez and his plight of having to fill fifteen pages. Read it, so that you too might know the love for Rape-Bo, the hobo that rapes things.

My first day on the phones were dismal in the beginning. After lunch, however, I sold a very nice computer system. Three cheers for me with each one different and better than the first. It would seem that we also have a pool. It's been dreadfully hot the past few days, though today and yesterday it's been storming off and on. We sat on the deck and watched an awesome lightning storm. Julia attempted to take pictures, but it was in vain.

Tonight we watched "Paranoia Agent" on Adult Swim. It was bizarre, but not in an overly confusing way. The commercials made it seem downright creepy, of which there doesn't seem to be enough of. Unlike that hobo. That hobo who rapes things. Rape-Bo.

Disney has officially throttled the last pantomime of life from the Muppets

2005-05-26T22:25:00.000-07:00

Walt Disney is, in the words of Jason, a "fuckmuppet". Quite literally in fact - his dynasty hell-bent on distorting the perception of children everywhere has not only defiled the Muppets, but the Wizard of Oz as well.

Twenty years ago, if the world had heard "the Wizard of Oz - Muppetized!", the joyous shouting from both young and old alike would be legion. Instead, the now Disney-owned Muppets have turned one of the most imaginative stories ever into a loathsome, stomach-turning blend of atrocious R&B-shite crooning, repugnant pop-culture references (Rizzo the Rat made a "Girls Gone Wild" allusion in a children's program) and Toto being turned into a money-grubbing prawn doing an abominable Tony Montana impersonation. And for crying out loud, look at the cast! Why the hell was Quentin Tarantino in it? I needn't elaborate further.

Julia and I watched the first half-hour before I could stand no more. I'm truly bewildered how something that could have been awesome could of been turned into absolute tripe. Why could they not of reprised the "Storyteller" and turned it into a production that featured Jim Henson Creature Shop creations, rather than the Muppets themselves doing the roles of our beloved L. Frank Baum characters? I suggest you bore steak knives into your eyes before ever attempting to watch that awful, awful, awful, piece of straight-to-television crap.

It's a good thing I couldn't find where the cucumbers were

2005-05-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

I was conscripted to buy greenery for our salad dinner this evening. I happened upon boxes of Count Chocula in on the "bargain" shelf while I was attempting to locate cucumbers. Having already been holding the two-for-five deal on Cheerio's and Reese's Puffs, I grabbed a single box of my favorite Halloween-themed cereal to gather a price check at the stand.

To my astonishment, they were each fifty cents.

With an unrivaled glee not unlike a child's, I rushed back to the discounted area and gathered as many as I could carry. It would seem I could carry eleven boxes, in addition to the hand-basket I already had.

I was so pleased with my grand purchase that I forced Julia to create photographic evidence.

Please also click here for what was touted "the greatest video clip under three seconds" by Julia's platonic man-friend Travis. I was attempting to burst free from the Chocularamid when I apparently slipped. Set it to loop for added hilarity.

"Zip-a-de doo dah," thought the murderer

2005-05-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

A photo montage of the madness that is Phil "Bipolar Murderer Responsible for Da Do Ron Ron" Spector's hair.

That's really the most exciting thing that's happened so far. We had Quizno's for dinner - chicken carbonara. Great goobally-goo, I certainly love Quizno's chicken carbonara.

Rise... my apprentice

2005-05-21T16:22:00.000-07:00


Words cannot convey gratitude to Julia for making this.

What a wookiee

2005-05-19T23:05:00.000-07:00

We just got back from seeing Star Wars. I won't say much about it, because I don't want to spoil the details. We all know the jist of what happens, but it's how it happens that's the goldmine. I thought certain parts were especially tragic. Had I been as sensitive as I was years go, I probably would've cried. But I didn't. Hey, at least Yoda doesn't die! Wait... no, he does.

There's nothing like winning a raffle to make one feel like a winner

2005-05-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

I won an audio system at work today in a raffle. I'll be receiving it tomorrow, so I have no idea how cool it is. It looked like the five-disc CD changer I saw at I believe Fred Meyer, or maybe it was Hel-Mart. My memory fogs. At any rate, I was so excited I leapt up, shouting my joy and threw my hat on the ground in a conniption of glee. Today by the way was Hat Day.

The Sword of Karma is dual-sided. As it would happen, I left the lights on in my car for the fourth time, murdering my battery. Thankfully a nice gentleman by the name of Jerry (I work with three Jerry's in the training class, two men and one woman) gave me a start in the parking lot. I'll be buying him lunch, as I did for the girl who gave me a jump last time (her name was pronounced "Ahzurtae"). DJ Throwdown got a box of donuts and the group of AORN employees who gave me the jump a first time received gratiutous "thank you's" and I think someone got a hug.

In effort to ensure my alternator kept my battery charged, Julia and I went on a drive around Roseburg. We found a road that connected to downtown Roseburg, where Julia saw a person who reminded her of me. He was of course a living Adonis - to look at him directly would be as though one were to re-enact the unsealing of the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The man from Microsoft gave me a Hershey bar

2005-05-16T19:31:00.000-07:00

My first day of work was great for me being in a complete fog. I stayed up thoroughly past my bedtime watching TV and playing Age of Mythology with Julia. I, of course, won hands down. There was no contest. Actually, she's beaten me twice already. But I'm deviating from the real story here. Well, there's no real story to speak of. I should say that I'm deviating from my random babbling.

I have four different instructors, each one teaching something different to one of our groups at intervals throughout the day. I was given a tutorial on what the four main components of a computer are, those being the mouse, keyboard, monitor and "chassis", which is the official term. I can now use official terms in my every day vernacular.
"You have a nice chassis. You say you call it a case? How droll. I scoff at you." Everyone thus far is very nice. One of the trainers is from New Zealand. His accent is like an Australian who is sibilant with the letter "S" like an Englishman, and puts "H's" in places where the letter "H" is not present, like Sean Connery. Asshume is an example. It's fascinating. I'm waiting for him to use New Zealand locution but I think he's been in America too long. He did say "chap" though, that's not something Americans often say. I like listening to other people say things with words that I don't associate with said thing. Like "lift" for elevator, or joyously exclaiming "gear" after you bet on the winner of an illegal cockfight.

Not much else went on. I talked to one of the trainers, the second woman I know with the name Frankie (spelled differently, however), about Piers Anthony after she saw I was reading "Nova", a book Jason gave me to read half a decade ago. It was in a box I've seemingly ignored. A man from Microsoft also came in to explain their products. He bribed us with chocolate. Delicious, delicious chocolate. I didn't pay attention to what he said, I was too enthralled with the chocolate. Mmm. Chocolate. I did listen to what he said about this and that, and the other thing. I found the Windows Media Center to be interesting. It has a built-in TiVo-like chip that records television programs for free.

Finally, I both heard for the first time and learned the definition of a "chomo," as though one has a "chomo mustache." The hilarity knows no bounds.

A frothing paroxysm simmers and fades into an exhausted cessation

2005-05-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

Thus explains my the gauntlet I was subjected to by Sprint.

Sprint, as well all know, is the bottom of the barrel of cellular phones. With inflated rates and no customer benefits, it's no wonder they're merging with Nextel. Prepare for the tirade.

Tirade:
I called in order to do three things - change my phone number from a Colorado number to an Oregon number, pay my phone bill and receive the 11% discount entitled to me for being contracted to Dell through Spherion. Suffice to say, I was unable to do any of that.

I called and spoke to a very apathetic-sounding girl who told me I could not change my number because I was on the phone in question and I might only pay my bill through the mail or with cash at a Sprint store. I was disappointed already in that I had to call thrice in order to speak to someone about changing my number only to realize my folly in calling from said phone, but to be denied my right to give them payment was a slap in the face. I realize that in the past, I was unable to pay my bill due to my credit. After a year of being a devoted customer with no late payments and no overages (which isn't a good thing on their end, that's where they make their money), I thought myself to be entitled to the privilege of paying over the phone. Kaloo Kalay, I was absolutely right! The girl I spoke to in March said I would have no problem doing so. The two gentlemen I made payments with confirmed that fact.

But not this day, no, I was speaking to a living Gorgon, spat out by the festering womb of a fetid swamp. She not only refused my right as a customer to pay, but she refused to let me speak to a supervisor. I was positively livid, an effect I attribute to only receiving half the daily recommended dose of sleep (which to me is more like a third). She told me a supervisor would only tell me the same thing. I retorted with the notion of wanting to speak to her manager for a reason other than the matter of my bill. She motioned that I would have to give a valid response, in that my prior reason of "wanting to know how her day was" would not suffice. After convincing her she was a very poor care representative, I was given over to her manager like a fruitcake on Thanksgiving.

The Gorgon's Queen was much less flippant and much more tolerant to my maniacal, sleep-deprived bullshit.

I'll not let this hellacious occurrence drag on any longer in the annals of Internet history, so let me just say my yelling, raving, swearing and screaming did absolutely no good. The pitch of my voice did raise to 80's schlock-rock heights in a very hilarious manner. In the manner of receiving my company discount, the Queen Gorgon stated there was no number I had to speak to regarding that department, and she would have to transfer me. I felt pangs of pity for her, having to absorb the brunt of my anger and frustration, so I apologized, exchanged goodbye's and hung up.

I had conceded to the Gorgons and accepted a demoralizing defeat. Then I called back. If this were a game of Super Mario, the effect was similar to eating a mobile mushroom with rounded green spots that came out of an invisible brick suspended in mid-air.

The man I spoke to (his name was Brandon, biographers) accepted my payment and saw no reason why anyone would refuse it in the first place. Prior to that, however, he informed me if I were to "switch my coverage area", I would have to renew my two year contract. Two more years of suffering through dodgy customer service? Not hardly! I declined. He also gave me the direct number to their Business department. Cheers, Brandon! Cheers!

My next gatekeeper through the dark maze of Tartarus had a funny name like "Amar" or "Agar". He was nice, not at all like the Gorgon or her Queen. No, Amar/Agar swiftly gave me my 11% discount and all the information I needed, guilt- and hassle-free. More cheers for the man who's name I've forgot somewhat!

My journey through the Stygian intestinal track that is cellular telephone customer service has left me in need of rest and comestibles.

The beginning starts with an ending

2005-05-15T03:22:00.000-07:00

I've forsaken LiveJournal in effort to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. So here I am, under the new banner of "blog". A journal is something one should keep to themselves, but a blog sounds more like "I'm going to post a bunch of banal drek on the internet." And that's what I'm going to do! Watch out, Internet!

Julia and I recently finished watching Samurai Champloo. I'm not an an otaku or anything, but I admit it was pretty kick-ass. The only qualms I had with it are the same in most other animes - the voice acting was too dramatic and there's an unexplained adorable animal companion. It was good, I suggest you watch it. Neither of us are sure what a "champloo" is.

I start my new sales job with Dell on Monday. I'm going to miss sitting around idly playing free Internet games and watching movies on cable. I miss the constant cash-flow more, however, and there's potential for some decent money. Even if I don't sell a single computer, the base pay is more than I was making with Nextel.

Roseburg is an interesting town. I was approached by a strange-yet-nice vagrant in the library who sought a ride. I have a hard time being put on the spot, so I often make an impulse decision with a mental flip of the coin. "Should I take this potentially dangerous man five miles out of town, or should I fib and make a clean get away?" I hate being deceitful, even in the smallest iota, so I had Julia do it. Hey, nothing wrong with having people do your dirty work for you, right? It worked for Charlie Manson! As we were leaving she quickly said "We can't, sorry, I'm late for work!" I felt bad for pulling a fast one on that pushy hobo. Poor pushy hobo.

I picked up Static-X's "Beneath... Between... Beyond..." at the Music Lounge on Pushy Hobo Day. It's a b-side/rare/demo/remix compilation, as bands are often want to produce. Some of the stuff on there was pretty good; the remixes weren't half bad, the rarities were worth it (one features Burton C. Bell - huzzah!) and yet the demos weren't that great. There was no awesome unreleased demo like on the Coal Chamber and Misfits compilation. Disappointment is abound.

Julia came across Velvet Revolver's album "Contraband" - a band that she insists should be a veritable superband. I liked them, but they're not as great as they ought to be. They are ten-thousand times greater than any Guns'n'Roses album. Hiss and boo all you want, Axl Rose offends all of my senses and I'm sticking too it. Peel Axl back from G'n'R and you have a very good group of musicians. Throw Scott Weiland into the mix and you have a band that's, in my opinion, better than Guns'n'Roses because there's no Axl. You also have a band that's better than post-"Purple" Stone Temple Pilots because post-"Purple" Stone Temple Pilots went downhill. Don't get me wrong, I like the music they made after that, it's just not the STP we all know and love. It's different and weird. Smack is a hell of a drug.

Thus ends my opinions and ramblings for tonight. I'm going to try to keep this updated regularly as an unerring monolith standing for my ability to go on at length with no meaning or point. Such heights we'll hit.