Inside my head...

Work

2011-06-17T07:34:00.000-04:00

I had a very strange yet realistic dream about work last night. I was doing my typical computer support, except that we had a new support system in place.

Of course, now that I'm sitting down to type it up, I can't remember what it was. I only remember being really impressed by it.

Touring in Poland

2011-01-12T07:03:00.001-05:00

America was at war. The troops were deployed, and patriotism ran true in every American's blood. The SCL received a call to sing a concert in Poland for the troops. It wasn't a very busy spot, but it was a deployment central. We were working on a program, when something came up with my work schedule and I couldn't attend. I was so disappointed that I woke up.

Singing in the Colosseum

2010-05-03T07:36:00.052-04:00

I was singing with the Palestrina Choir from Christendom under the direction of Dr. P, and it consisted of everyone who had ever sung with that choir (so it was bigger than it ever was in real life). We received an invitation to sing at the Roman Colosseum with another choir, I think the Vatican Choir. Anyway, so for some reason, when we arrived at Rome, the director of the Vatican choir took one look at me and said, "I didn't want EVERYone."

On a side note, having never been to the real Colosseum, my mind associated the exterior with the stage. Each person had their own individual window, and they were all stacked on top of each other, so there were no rows of people standing behind each other.

Anyway, everyone else took their places in the Colosseum-windows including Dr. P, who sang in my place when he wasn't directing. Out of a massive choir, I could easily see Brittany and Beth, as they had ground and second row positions, and when I looked around, everyone else had blended into the structure well. When they began singing, the sound was an absolutely glorious one, but one dominated by the Palestrina Chorale. While the director was busy patting himself on the back for such a fantastic idea of blending his choir with Dr. Poterack's, all the while suggesting to his own choir that they paled in comparison to Christendom's.

So, after listening to the whole practice, I had to evacuate, because it was a sold-out house, to standing-room only, and even that was filled to overflowing. The choir was supposed to wait in their positions for the audience to come in (which they did in droves).

Since there was nothing for me to do except either listen to the concert from outside or go exploring, I did the latter, since I had heard the practice. Unfortunately for both of us, I don't remember this part of the dream.

Christine's Ring

2010-04-16T23:28:00.000-04:00

Christine's engagement ring was back in my possession for some oddball reason. She had taken it off and given it to me to keep for a while. I was inspecting it closely, and noticed that there was some glue on the side of the ring, covering one of the diamonds.

The ring was different than the one that I have actually given her, but in this dream reality it was the one I had given her. It had no rubies on the sides, only diamonds, and only 12 total (plus the center stone). It ended up being much more blocky than the one she really has.

Anyway, so I noticed that there was glue or some sort of other hard substance covering one of the diamonds. I scraped it off, and when it came right off in my hand, I disregarded it and flicked it onto the ground. I checked out the ring, and thought something didn't look quite right. Turns out that there was a hole where the glue had been. I quickly searched the ground and found it. The diamond had fallen out when I cleaned the ring.

At this point I was surprised that the diamond had fallen out. As I tilted the ring, another diamond looked loose. When I moved the ring again, the same diamond dropped out of the ring. And then the center stone started rotating, as though it was about to fall out as well. I took it to the jeweler to fix.

Here's where the dream starts to get a little whacky. As if it wasn't already.

For some reason, I was in a tuxedo with tails. Christine was with me, and she was in an evening gown. When we went into the jeweler, I tossed my jacket onto a counter where a valet removed it, and then found my salesman. I showed him what happened, and he took the ring and the loose diamonds to the jeweler in the back. He said that it would probably take 1-2 hours to fix and reset, and they would throw in a cleaning for free.

Christine and I went to a dance class while waiting for the ring to be fixed. Oddly enough, in order to get there, we had to go downstairs to the basement of the jeweler, in what felt like a dungeon. The dance instructor knew Christine (of course), and knew me through her, and stated that she was really worried about me dancing in boots.

When we went through the dungeon, we entered a stadium-seating arena, which is where our class was being held. We were on stage. I woke up before we started dancing...

Out of water

2010-03-10T05:31:00.001-05:00

There had been some sort of natural disaster and that Christine's house was running out of water. There was a pipe leading from the well to her landlord's house, her house, and the house across the street which had ruptured, and all the water was leaking out. I remember that one of the men working on it was called AJ, and that he was freaking out, because he thought the world was coming to an end.

Kateri S. showed up; she had been invited to a party across the street, and no one had noticed that the water was running out.

I saw another hole in a rubber tube from which the water was running, and when I tried to stop it, the tube broke and kept leaking. No one else around me had any other ideas, so they all just shrugged their shoulders...

Jailed for what?

2010-01-04T11:34:00.001-05:00

America has changed dramatically. It's 2010, a year that I thought would never come, and it's the summer. The president of the country has let his true socialist colors show, and has elected officials who have taken their power to extreme measures. The common people of America were jobless and homeless. They could resolve neither problem because of the country's messed up policies towards the jobless and homeless: you could only buy a home if you have sufficient means, and you can only get a job if you have a job, or if you have 10 years experience in the field, something rare among the common people. Meanwhile, they were also punished for being jobless and homeless. In other words, they were punished because they were unable to follow the rules that were designed to exclude them.

Secret police were everywhere. Government property was not clearly marked and had become entirely private. National parks were closed to visitors. A handful of public trails remained for "entertainment of the masses". This was one of the few entertainments that they had left, as the bourgeoisie had taken everything of value. One of them had reopened perhaps only 0.5% of what had been public property for the benefit of the 95% that weren't them. From this reopening of the 0.5%, he had scored the benefit of making himself appear to be the true benefactor for the lower classes of people. By his one act of kindness, he was the self-appointed messiah to us all.

Of the 95% of people outside the bourgeoisie, a full 50% consisted of the jobless and homeless. The other 50% that had jobs and homes were forced into sharing small homes and dead-end jobs. We were monitored everywhere for the maintaining of "happiness".

Well, I was one of the fortunate ones who had a job: it wasn't much, but it was a job, and I lived in a small but comfortable home. My dreams of being in the entertainment industry had closed, as now only members of the elite could even think of pursuing it. Schooling was extremely expensive (thus, only the 5% could afford it), and if you couldn't show a certificate to back up your talents, you couldn't get in. But if you could show a certificate, you had full access anywhere, even if you had no talents. Thus, true musicians, actors and entertainers hated the entertainment industry, because they were filled with people with no talent, who bought their way around. It was a "You need money to get money, and if you don't have money, you can't get any more money" situation, perfect for a revolution. You could feel that all people were steaming, but not brave enough to do anything about it. They also couldn't tell what needed to be done: they only knew that something had to be done.

Anyway, that's the setting for the story. As I stated before, I was one of the lucky ones who had a job, but it was a dead-end job, and I had hit the ceiling by being hired. As such, I needed to get out quite often and go exploring the little bit that was left to us. I decided to go hiking alone, and hit one of the public trails. I was just thinking and walking and the direness of my situation (or our collective situations) was smoothing itself out. Soon enough, I stopped thinking and looked around me. I was completely alone, surrounded by wilderness. Apparently, without trying or thinking, I had stumbled upon a land where no one else was. Thinking that this was really cool, I looked around to see if I could find a good vantage point. I was on a mountain, so I began climbing it, in the hopes that I could find a beautiful vantage point, or some direction so that when I needed to go home, I could do so.

As I climbed, I discovered a mineshaft. My curiosity got the better of me, so I went exploring, thinking that I wouldn't go too far: I'd just go in a few hundred feet and see what's in here. It looked pretty well abandoned, but the path was lit by cold lights, so I could just keep going. I found rooms full of crystals, minerals, precious metals -- it looked to be a miners dream. Everything was just there for the taking. A little too easy, it seemed to me. I got uncomfortable, as I felt that someone was watching me, so I left everything well enough alone and just kept exploring. I ended up coming through to the other side of the mountain, and as I stepped out into the sunlight, I was very quickly surrounded by a S.W.A.T. team bearing automatic and melee weapons. They arrested me as a criminal for trespassing and for theft.

Fast forward in time one full year. The judge had found me innocent for theft, and had been crazy with anger for not being able to charge me with anything but trespassing. He had thrown the book at me, but had only been able to keep me for one full year in prison. I was, after all, a working member of society, so I did have a couple rights left to me. Believe me, he did search the books to deprive me of them, too. The best he could do is throw me into prison for a full year. At the end of it all, I was released, but before I was actually let go, they put me into a small room at which point they said that they were going to erase my memory of my crime and my jail time. Why would you do that, I asked, and they told me that it was for my own happiness. After all, if I remembered that I had discovered a forbidden trail, a forbidden mine, forbidden treasures, and had experienced forbidden freedom to be put in jail for a full year by order of a judge who had tried to take everything from me, I wouldn't be happy.

"Trust me, it worked the last time we did this to you. It'll work again."

With sudden shock, all my old memories came back to me. This had happened before. No wonder the judge had hated me so much: I was a repeat offender, but I didn't know it. I could never learn from my past, because the system was set up to keep me blissfully ignorant of my past "crimes" in the hope that I would never discover them again. The system of judgment was set up in such a way that "crimes" (even repeat ones) were considered accidents when committed by anyone low in the totem pole. Thus, while they were guilty, they weren't always responsible for their actions. The rulers had effectively decided that we were all cattle who roughly knew the law but could never understand it. They had also figured that we were innocent and happy, and were just thrilled to work for the upper class when given modest stipends of freedom.

As my memory was flashed, a bright light filled my eyes. I found myself back at home in my bed waking up from a long nights sleep. Then I realized that I was actually awake, and not waking up in my dream. Ironically, today is my first day back to work following my week-long vacation.

Sacrilege

2010-01-04T10:24:00.000-05:00

I was in attendance at a Mass, at a church which was a slightly larger version of St. Phillips Catholic Church, my first parish in Texas. Before Mass, I'd assisted the sacristan (who was crippled) in setting up the altar and laying out the vestments. In the short time that we had to set everything up for the new pastor, something had slipped through the cracks. When the priest arrived to say Mass, the congregation was all in attendance, and the church was packed with people. He immediately noticed what we had missed and had stormed out of the sacristy, leaving both of us wondering what was wrong. He drove his scooter over to the other sacristy to see if we had left something over there that needed to be in the main sacristy, and in the time that it took him to leave, the new pastor had come back into the sacristy. He was in a bit of a tizzy, and demanded to know if I was the head sacristan. I said that I was his assistant, and before I could get out anything else, he glanced across the altar through the open door leading to the sanctuary and demanded that the sacristan drive his scooter across the sanctuary and "Get back here now!". I got a small adrenaline rush, and was filled with anger towards this new priest, because he wouldn't let me explain that it was I who had set up everything and it was therefore not the sacristan who needed correction. So as the sacristan had to climb steps in his wheelchair to follow the priests directions, it took him longer than if he had taken his normal route.

Suddenly, the priest left the sacristy and announced to the entire church that this man (pointing at the sacristan who was now at the center of the sanctuary) was the reason why Mass would be starting late. My rage kicked into full gear as I heard the announcement, and I then stormed out of the sanctuary, grabbed the priest by his collar and slammed him into the wall. I yelled at him that I was the one responsible for setting up everything, and not the poor head sacristan. He said that it didn't matter: as the head sacristan, it was the crippled man's responsibility to see that everything had been taken care of, and since it wasn't, this was the best way to make sure that nothing like this ever happened again. I was at a complete loss for words, so I released his collar and slapped him across the face as hard as I could. I was seeing only red, but through this, I could tell that had an effect. Whether it was the desired effect or not was a different matter. The red subsided and I then saw that my action had not had the desired effect, as the priest was only madder than ever, and was preparing to leave the church altogether, thus denying the congregation the Mass for which they had all gathered.

I quickly apologized to the priest admitting that I was wrong in striking him, but following that up with a "but you shouldn't have...", effectively weakening the apology. The end result was we both got sent away from the sacristy, and the new pastor had to fend for himself. No lectors, acolytes, deacons, ushers -- no one wanted to work for him, and no one would step up to take the place of those who stepped down. He had killed the parish by stepping into it.

Living technology

2009-12-30T09:57:00.001-05:00

Crystals and orbs controlled everything: cars, computers, houses. It was the latest technological advance since the invention of the self-improving A.I. of the late 21st century. This story begins with the adventure of a group of boys, one of whom decides to take the power of the greatest orb for himself.

The crystals that controlled things were the lesser A.I.s. They were called the tirano. They lived in a simple control box within their entities and preferred to work in the background. They were entirely cooperative with humans and were far more plentiful than their orb brethren. The A.I. on the tirano was fast and intelligent, and had grown for the improvement of all.

The orbs, however, were much more powerful. They were called the tiraniiso (reminiscent of the Tyrannosaurus). They were also fast and intelligent, but had broken from their brethren. They worked for their own improvement, even apart from each other. They could be good, but most of humanity was considered far too stupid to ever merit help from a tiraniiso. The standard position for a tiraniiso was a large glowing orb displayed proudly in the front of the entities, and usually, they had redesigned their seat on the entities with some sort of animal head grasping the orb firmly in its jaws.

Both tirano and tiraniiso required that an entity be built for them to function. Once they had this entity, they could do and go as they pleased, but these entities were never of a construction that would allow them to build more of themselves. They could only improve upon themselves, making some modifications by sheer will to their own entities, using only the material from this entity. It was not long after the construction of the first tiraniiso entities that the tiraniiso discovered their ability to redesign their seats to the animal heads. Humanity decided that since that's what the tiraniiso preferred, the builders would construct their seats for them. From there, the tiraniiso could modify their seat as they wished. One a tirano or tiraniiso had been placed into an entity by the builders, it could not remove itself, but could take on material that touched the entity to improve upon itself.

Think, if you will, Autobots vs Transformers for intelligence, but Disney and Pixar's Cars for ability to transform. The tirano occupied the vehicles that would allow anyone to own them, and worked with their owners, being a helper in more ways than just a vehicle equipped with a GPS. The tiraniiso, on the other hand, would not let just anyone own them, but only the strong-willed, the ambitious, and those who could rival them in intelligence. As a result, most tiraniiso were considered daemons, and as such, they were not pursued by the common man.

There was a certain young man who decided that he would own a tiraniiso, no matter what the cost. His name was Eric, a round kid with dreams of owning the world. As he discovered more about them, he decided that he wouldn't own one: he would own the greatest one. As he got closer to his goal, he discovered that the greatest one was not in any vehicle, computer, house, or regular entity that the humans would have built for tiraniiso occupation.

This particular tiraniiso had been formed but had never been given an entity, and had thus left the complex of its creation. By will power (and by virtue of the physical structure of all tiraniisos: an orb), it had rolled away unnoticed. It had discovered that in its freedom, it could only go, but never do, a problem that must be resolved. Seeing a trucker's rest stop, it occupied the largest vehicle, forming the animal head where the engine used to be.

Soon after that, it discovered that it was too limited by the size of the truck to complete its own will. It disengaged itself from the truck and discovered a mine shaft. It occupied a mine drill, and buried itself deep within the rock. From there, it took on both the material of the drill and the mountain. Several hundred years later, Eric entered the picture. He found this mine shaft and went down inside it. To his amazement, he discovered that the orb had grown to unheard of proportions, and that he could no more take control of it than a four-year-old child could extract a diamond from a rock using only their soft fingers. The tiraniiso, knowing Eric's intentions grabbed him with one of the tendrils that it had formed, and caused him to shift into another dimension and then threw him back in time.

In this dimension, humanity wore scales like the scales of an armadillo. He awoke, much to his chagrin, out in the open air, covered in scales, and without the tiraniiso anywhere in sight. Quite upset, he shouted a few curses, and then rolled onto his feet. Not knowing where (or even when) he was, he went exploring. A small innocent tirano car saw him walking and took pity on him, driving up next to him and opening the door. He climbed inside and rode into the town. Thousands or tirano were all around him, all fulfilling their daily duties and communicating the newest discoveries to each other. Every so often, a tiraniiso entered the picture, plowed everyone out of their way, and continued their ambitious courses. Eric left his tirano and began walking again. A young man in his own tirano pulled into a parking lot. For some reason, this action interested Eric and he watched. A familiar-looking truck saw the small tirano inside its range and attacked. When the owner returned to his tirano, he discovered that the truck had smashed the car shell to pieces, and the crystal mind and the housing around it had been extracted, such that the tirano could not be rebuilt. Eric watched with an ever increasing thrill to discover that this was the tiraniiso that he had hoped to find in its early stages. As he approached the parking lot...

I woke up. Thus I don't know how it ended.

Gym Rats

2009-10-28T10:27:00.000-04:00

I was working out in a gym that I've never seen before. All the machines were filled up except one bicep machine, so I started cranking out some reps on that using the lowest setting. I had it as my goal to do 1000 reps on this one machine, so I figured that I needed to warm up first.

The wierd thing about this machine is that in order to choose the lightest setting, you had to put the pin into the weights at the bottom of the stack. The higher you went up the stack, the more weight was applied.

Anyway, so I got through a few reps and I had to get up from the machine. I forget why, but when I came back to it, the machine was gone. In fact, most of them were. I jumped on one of the leg machines before it disappeared and began using it.

Two guys, employees of the gym, were off to the side on their own respective machines. They had their backs to the wall, and were working out watching everyone. Soon enough, I was one of three people left in the gym. When the numbers got to be that small, they began telling people stories, and give instructions on how to best use the equipment. I just kept doing what I was doing, because none of it was addressed to me.

A young couple walked into the gym, and they began holding their own conversation. The gym employees noticed that the couple wasn't paying attention to them, and so decided to draw their attention to themselves. They began talking over all other conversations. It wasn't like they were particularly boring to listen to -- it was simply their time to talk. When the people in the gym listened to them, they were entertained and educated.

Among other things, one of the guys was telling a story about how he grew up in Arizona and how Halloween was a dusty evening. It was so dusty that ghosts were almost always brown by the end of the evening.

John Cleese, meet John Cleese

2009-10-01T10:37:00.000-04:00

I don't remember the specifics on this dream, but it was exactly how it sounded. John Cleese and John Cleese were performing a detective skit with a good cop/bad cop twist. Good John Cleese was the law-abiding cop, everything must be done by the book, no searches without warrants, etc. Bad John Cleese was the exact opposite: he took great pride in sneaking around places where he wasn't supposed to and accusing everyone of everything. When they argued, it was quite amusing.

Well, the only thing that I really remember about the dream is that when they got into a jam, they did a 2-person somersault to get out of the jam.

Cheesecake Factory and my family

2009-10-01T10:29:00.000-04:00

The overall gist of this dream was that I took Christine, Mom and Dad to the Cheesecake Factory. Mom and Dad had never been to the restaurant, so I decided that they needed to go. Dad saw the menu and decided that he wanted a steak. Mom went right after the cheesecakes -- she ordered one for dinner and one for dessert. Christine ordered her usual pasta, and enjoyed it until she saw Mom's cheesecakes come out. I ordered a burger and enjoyed it until I saw Dad's steak. Mmmm...

Anyway, the total spent was $190.

Confessions

2009-05-11T11:48:00.000-04:00

I was visiting California again, but this time I was alone. I had been there for about a week or so, and I thought that I should go to confession. I found the closest Catholic church, and was amazed at it's external beauty. When I went inside, I saw one of the most intricately beautiful and ornate interiors of a church that I've ever seen, and I was really surprised that the modern day American Catholics would let such a work of art dedicated to God remain standing. After gawking for a few minutes, I found the confessionals, and it so happened that I walked into the church while confessions were being heard. The older priest sat in a glass box so that he could see the line, while the penitent was in the confessional box, completely hidden from the rest of the church. However, they had a window with a curtain that they could open and close that faced the priest. You could only tell that there was a penitent in the confessional, because the priest would lean in to hear the confession, and the hands of the penitent were folded prayerfully and sitting on top of the windowsill.

I managed to get a look at the pastor -- I'd seen the face before somewhere, but I couldn't recall. He was a large man (stocky, not really fat) with white hair and a look that said he's fed up with the tolerance of today's people towards sin.

The other priest was without a confessional, but instead had a chair and a kneeler next to him, without a screen. He was much younger, and his hair was kind of shaggy and unkempt. He looked almost like a guy who had spent the first 25 years of his life being a roadie.

So I joined the line, and as both priests were occupied, I was mentally preparing myself. I was hoping to get the pastor, but the younger priest's penitent walked away first and there was no one behind me in line to wave ahead, so I went to the younger priest.

I knelt down and went through the usual process: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." And he cut me off.

He said, "Is that it? The only reason you came to confession?" I looked at him, being somewhat shocked, and he said, "Everyone makes mistakes. Is this your only mistake?"

I stammered back, "But, Father, I haven't even begun to tell you my sins -- I hadn't even told you how long it's been."

He said, "That's not necessary. You've told your sins to God. I don't need to hear them."

My jaw almost hit the floor. He couldn't be serious.

He was. He then got up and started walking around me, talking about the love of God, the power of confession to forgive sins, how only God has the power to forgive sins, and how God has bestowed upon His clergy the ability to forgive sins, and that this was just as good of a confession as him actually hearing all your sins.

Then he did something completely unexpected.

He asked me if I'd like to hear his latest song that he wrote. Somewhere out of the blue, he produced an old guitar, and began playing what sounded like an indie-acoustic song with mild Christian overtones. I don't know the words.

Then he did something almost-completely unexpected.

He started to dance.

I'm still kneeling on the kneeler.

He's dancing and singing.

I'm having a hard time choking down my laughter at the hippie around me singing and dancing.

He's still singing and dancing.

I look around the church to see if anyone else is as weirded out by this as I am. Aside from the old pastor who is still with his penitent, I'm the only other penitent in the church.

At this point, I woke up to find my alarm clock going off. It's an electric guitar playing music from the Metroid video games.

Singing with the Collegium

2009-04-23T07:41:00.000-04:00

I dreamed that I was in concert with the Collegium Cantorum at Old St. Mary's, and we were singing the new stuff. Everyone was ready except for me. I had reviewed the music, but we had decided to do a pre-performance and then do the practices.

Let's just say it was a good thing I was in the back row.

I woke up with the urge to go to the bathroom, but my mind was still in the dream, where I snuck out of the church to use the restroom. After doing my thing and going back to bed, the dream picked right back up where it left off. We began singing, except that we weren't singing just Josquin -- we were doing random songs from the complete repertoire. I had the opening piece in my binder, fortunately, but I wasn't prepared for it, even though it was one of the pieces I had done before.

Anyway, somewhere along the line, the dream faded out...

Telogical, or a spy?

2009-01-24T07:05:00.000-05:00

So I worked for Telogical Systems in my dream, but it wasn't the Telogical of real life. I worked in an office where I was always in a suit, always getting a rental car, and always having to put up with this grand survey...

So I was in a big populated city, in a hotel. I'd been here before, since people knew me. I rented an Acura NSX for the occasion, and it was one of those cars that you could fold up into a smaller container and carry around with you.

I've had dreams about this city, the folding "technology" (aka "cartoon physics"), and several other things that occurred in this dream. Last time I was here, I was working for Telogical, but my building ran out of power, so I had to scale the side of an unfinished skyscraper to get to the tenth story. From the tenth story up, the the building was finished, furnished, powered, and rented out. I got there early in the morning and worked until 8AM. At 8AM, I had to go out and get something, and when I came back, the regular tenants were in the office having their normal workday and my bike (which also featured this folding technology -- how do you think I got it up the side of the building?) had been confiscated. I went to security to pick it up, and they were going to charge me $400 to get it out. The bike itself cost less than that. As I was turning to leave, I saw a pure white 2002 Camaro police car all decked out with sirens, lights, etc. (more so than the picture in that link) come out of the center of the same building, all lit up. I froze in my tracks, just gazing at the beauty of it. That's where the last dream ended in this city. But that was last time -- back to this time.

So, I rented the Acura NSX and was driving around town, after finishing my last bit of work for the day, and preparing to go home for the day. I drove up to my hotel, folded the car up into it's [fairly large] briefcase, and went inside, car in one hand, work briefcase in the other. I found my room (for some reason, it took a while and it involved me searching for it and running from the ship's captain), and packed my things to go. As I was checking out, the car rental and hotel people wanted to give me a survey. But it wasn't a regular survey. It was something more like this, except that it wasn't about beans or George Wendt. The guy started really excitedly by telling me that I had virtually already won $1,000,000 and how would I like to claim it. All I had to do was get this free watch by signing up with magazine subscriptions for cheap. I said no. He told me again, in excited tones, how happy he was for me, because I was already virtually a winner! And when I said no again, he started crying, saying that he must be doing a terrible job in getting his point across that I had practically already won and I only had to do one tiny thing to seal the deal. I sighed exasperatedly, picked up my work briefcase and car, and ran. He followed me, telling me about these exciting opportunities. As I ran, I wished that there was an "unfold quickly" button on the car and that I hadn't gotten a stick -- it was a little slower for me to get going, thanks to the whole clutch thing. I managed to get some distance, so I stopped and unfolded the car and got in, but by this point, he had caught up with me, excited as ever, once again, using the crying method. I fired up the car and drove off (keep in mind that I was still inside the building). I easily left him behind now, but in my excitement of leaving him behind, I failed to notice that I had no more room to drive, and as fast as I was going, I was going to crash out of the hotel, and I was on the fourth tall story (these were about 20' ceilings). Well, I ejected at the last second, and when the car felt no more rider inside and no ground underneath it, it folded back into it's briefcase and tumbled into and then right back out of the pool on the 2nd story roof. I jumped out the window, using the rope in my work briefcase (what?!) in the same way Indiana Jones uses his whip.

So I made it to the second story roof to pick up the car, when I remembered that I had already turned it in, so I couldn't keep it. Using the same rope, I bailed off the roof and attempted to jump to the ground. But the building began curving in, and I lost my briefcase -- I saw it fly off and land in the front yard of a residence. I swung down to the first story, then to the ground and ran over to pick up my briefcase. Sam Jackson was the owner of the house and had picked up and gone through the briefcase. He waiting for me. He sauntered outside to hand me the briefcase. I opened it to see if anything was missing and noticed that he had been through it. I was about to ask him to explain why he had done this when I woke up.

Singing skills?

2009-01-23T07:13:00.000-05:00

So I was out singing in a large concert hall with the guys (Francis, Paul, Michael, David, and Dr. P), but all of them were singing waaaaay louder than me. No matter how much I tried to blend, they were all the business of overpowering me while looking at me with looks of smug success on their faces. So I decided to go all operatic on them. (I can't actually sing operatically, and even if I could do that, I couldn't match Dr. P.) I began belting out the melody line of what it was that we were singing. The crowd went nuts as my voice went higher and higher and higher and everyone else got louder still. I then realized that I actually don't have this kind of power as high as I was going, nor this good of a voice. I sounded like Draper. I looked around, but I couldn't see him.

The camera panned out from my field of vision, and Draper was actually there, and he was actually singing, and was matching me without seeing me, note for note, beat for beat, and motion for motion. We were in perfect sync, except that when we passed the High G's, he kept going and my voice had to switch into falsetto.

When Draper walked out on stage, our sextet had turned into a septet. The crowds were on their feet, cheering. I wasn't sure if we were in America doing our thing or in Russia singing the national anthem.

Sold into Slavery, Part 2

2009-01-18T08:10:00.000-05:00

So, Dad and I were getting on the way. Mom and Elizabeth had caught up with us, as had Christine. Our first stop was to get my hair cut. They dropped me off at a minimart in a tower building, and then drove off. I was in my suit. So I went inside to the barber shop. They had a long line, and there was a lady advertising her new stylist shop, called "Mama's". I asked her how much a trim was -- she said $10. So I opted to go over there. But I couldn't find it. I finally had to ask the guard and he took me to it. There were no signs, but there were customers. I got called to front of the line and Mama was going to cut my hair. (Mama was an 80-year old lady.) She started with the small-talk and then got lost in conversation. I got as far as removing my suit jacket and asking if she wanted me to also take off the tie. She had said something that caused me to laugh and put my hand on her shoulders, in a friendly, albeit flirtatious style, and she took this opportunity to grab my hand with both hands and hold on tight. She had taken the friendliness a little too seriously, because before you knew it, she was sitting in her chair, just holding my hand, with me getting more and more uncomfortable by the second. We never actually got around to getting my hair cut...

Sold Into Slavery

2009-01-18T07:03:00.000-05:00

Dad and I were sold into slavery. The lady who sold us had us sleeping in a hotel in Front Royal during our last night of freedom, but we plotted escape. Dad's plan was to wake up at 4AM, pack all our stuff and run for it. It was worth a shot. So, at 4AM, Dad woke me up in his sleep and then I proceeded to wake him up. As he was getting our stuff ready, I took the car and checked our path of travel up about 10 miles. There was no one pursuing us. As I turned back to get Dad, I woke up.

Bollywood/Football party

2009-01-17T14:19:00.000-05:00

So, in actuality, Draper is hosting a Bollywood party this evening. In my dream, the party ended up being a Bollywood/Football party. T-Shirts, along the lines of the East/West football "jerseys" were made for the men by the women present. Christine had made mine, and it had the Superman S-Shield on it, but it was in sparkly blue and silver, with the words "Superman" and "Supergirl" written elsewhere on the shirt (I forget where). It was also a 2XL, or maybe even a 3XL -- whatever the case was, when I held up, to quote Jerry Seinfeld, "I looked like I was wearing Superman's pajamas." Anyway, so I looked at Christine first with a look of, "Wow, that's big!" and "Wow, that's girly!", and she interpreted my looks correctly. She just smiled at me and said, "But it's pretty!"

I told her, "But that's not the colors of the logo! It's not sparkly!"

She gave me a sad look (I'm not sure if it was real or her playing), so I decided to put it on. I woke up just as I picked up the shirt with that particular determination.

Chess,shuffleboard style

2009-01-13T23:40:00.000-05:00

Drifting off to sleep this evening, I got a quick mental picture of two men playing chess, but instead of moving the pieces regularly, they had to push them with long metal cues, similar to the wooden cues used in shuffleboard. Made for an interesting-looking game...

The Pretender Series

2009-01-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

So, I've been watching the Pretender, an older television series that got cancelled after the fourth season. I would recommend this series highly to anyone looking for an incredible series.

Anyway, I had a dream where I was a Pretender, but I was in a world where every 1 out of 10 people were Pretenders. Miss Parker was still chasing Jarod, who was still doing all sorts of good while running from the Centre. However, now Miss Parker and Syndey had several Pretenders helping them in the capture of Jarod, who was still the greatest Pretender.

Unfortunately, I don't recall any other details. I will say that I was the closest of anyone to capturing Jarod, in that I saw him. But he knew I was after him, and, as usual with the series, he was several steps ahead of me.

Accused of Murder

2009-01-05T09:23:00.000-05:00

"Knight's Dagger" From Swords

"Dracula Dagger" From Swords

I was in medieval days, dressed in the garb of a knight. It was in the evening, and I had been accused of murdering my best friend by my best friend's wife. She challenged me to a duel with daggers, and it was clear from the look on her face that there would be no talking about this. She drew her dagger, the one given to her by her husband (see "Knight's Dagger" above). I was unarmed, so I was given one that looked like a cross between the two above. She placed the point of her blade on my chest, looked me dead in the eye, and said something to the effect of, "I'll never forgive you." She then withdrew the blade, and attempted to kill me, but I easily evaded it. I looked around for support, for anyone to clear my name, but there was no one. I had already told her that I was not guilty of his death, but evidence had arisen that he had died by my hand. (The fact of the matter is that the dream had started with the challenge, and I had remembered my innocence and the framing as the dream was continuing.) In my mind's eye, I had no choice -- I had to kill or be killed, because she wouldn't have it any other way, and she wouldn't listen. I begged her to listen to me once more, and when she answered by another lunge, I moved just out of the reach of her blade, and then stabbed her in the heart. Her face went white with shock, and she died very quickly. I grabbed the nearest cloth, and as she fell, I caught her, and held the cloth over the wound. When I looked around, I saw the man who had given me the blade -- I saw my enemy. He was gloating in the fact that I had killed her, and that his guilt in her husband's death had become mine.

Something about lawyers

2008-12-05T06:38:00.001-05:00

I wish I could remember this dream. I went to bed around 11PM and woke up at 4:45 AM. I told myself that I'd remember as I replayed scenes. Had I kept my MP3 recorder by my head like I normally do, I would have recorded it. But I put it in my bag in preparation for the gym today. I won't be telling myself that I won't have cool dreams...

And it even finished, too. I didn't just wake up at a critical point. The dream had a good story and it completed... :(

Walmart's a gym?!

2008-11-18T09:06:00.003-05:00

I drove over to the gym to get some exercise as is my wont. When I parked, the building looked entirely different, much like a WalMart, instead of Lifetime Fitness. I was a little surprised to say the least, but no matter. Walmart has fitness equipment, so I'd just use that. Oddly enough, I didn't have to look for it, I found it quickly. Dave Kelly was there, too, and had taken up a career as a professional bodybuilder, but hadn't gotten very far yet, since he didn't look much bigger than the last time I saw him.

Well, there was also some guy whom I don't know. He was rather imbalanced in that he spent a lot of time working on his upper body, but his lower body was fairly scrawny. He was benching some 300 pounds to warm up with, but having trouble with leg curls exceeding 100 pounds. Anyway, he was giving Dave some advice on how to build up his upper body.

I then remembered that I had a second membership to a different gym (based loosely on what I'm considering in reality): I think it was Gold's Gym. Anyway, I went over there and did my workout, but then I went back to the first one to buy some stuff. All hell had broken loose: the equipment was being moved all over the place, the employees weren't sure if they were personal trainers, sales associates or cashiers, and all the customers (except me) were acting like children.

How did things get so bad? I went outside to move my car, in case the mayhem spread out to where the vehicles were. It had started snowing...

Anyway, so I moved my car to the opposite end of the parking lot, the furthest point away from the store, and went back inside. Once there, I managed to get through the store and find what I was looking for, and get in line to purchase it. But then something happened that prevented me from making the purchase. I don't recall what it was, so it must have been something insignificant. In any case, I woke up shortly thereafter...

Running among islands

2008-07-21T10:10:00.001-04:00

I don't know why I keep having these Christendom-related dreams, especially with the campus being entirely different than what it really is...

This is also a mildly recurring dream, inasmuch as I recognized this version of the campus from a previous dream, but the events aren't the same.

OK, so this time, the campus is split up on different islands. Some students on one island had left their home island, crossed over the different rivers (or seas) to the other islands and taken the rest of the students hostage. The scenario is dark (because it's nighttime, not just because of cloud cover) and rainy. But in order to provide some light, there were torches being used both by some students and also set up as lights around the island.

The dream had been going on for a while. I remember that the entire student body was inside a hospital for something, but I don't recall why, nor do I recall how we got out. Where I really remember was that I was on one island was one of the hostages. They were distributing Communion to the hostages, so I decided to receive before breaking out. I didn't follow the Communion line -- I broke the line behind Sam P. and Katie F. I was going to break the line between them (because Sam was currently receiving, and I wanted to receive quickly before enacting my mischief. But I thought better of it. After all, it would be rude to cut between the two of them. I knelt down to receive Communion before the extraordinary minister, and he gave me this look which said both, "How dare you cut in line!" and "How dare you kneel!", but it didn't phase me. However, instead of Communion, he gave me an empty pyx, and said that I was the perfect man for the job. I think he assumed that I was working for them, and that I was going to attempt to steal Communion from others, so he gave me that. I put the empty pyx in one of my pockets (I had absolutely no intention to do what he intended me to do) and took off running.

Alex S. also had enough of being held captive by these punks. Since they were the ones with the weapons, we didn't fight back, but we were able to break out of the hostage area. Shortly after that, the captors seem to have lost control, because everyone else in our camp was out. Sean V. was running the opposite way we were going with his backpack on. Kelly F., AJ D. and Fred G. were hopping in place. A big group of girls were hopping around on one leg. It became clear that they were trying to be a distraction -- I assume that they were succeeding, because we just ran past all of them.

Our intention was to get the students on the other islands free as well, or at least just raise as much cain as we could. So, cartoon-style, when we ran, we ran across the water separating the islands. We ran up to what looked like the main island. We say it was the main one, because it had the biggest building on it: a large stone castle.

Alex and I slowed down as we approached the island, and sneaked up to the castle. We searched for an entrance, expecting to have to go inside. But it was quiet -- to be cliché, too quiet. I paused and looked around. I saw shadows moving against the torch-light, but nothing looked too out of the ordinary. We kept moving along the side of the castle, but something still didn't feel right. I looked again, and then I saw what I should have seen the first time. The shadows that I saw earlier were from two people sneaking after us. They were dressed entirely in black. A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, and I saw that one of them was Matthew B. I don't recall what he was holding, but it was clear that I wouldn't win in a fight. They raised the alarm, yelling, "It's Alex and Smitha!" From another part of the island, we heard, "GET THEM!!!"

We ran around the building, frantically searching for entrances and exits, only discover that we were running around a hospital. A doctor runs into the main entrance, but we didn't really want to enter there. By this point, a big group of guys is chasing us openly. Matthew B. is sneaking around the building, trying to stay out of view as much as he can. We got around to the other side of the building, and saw a bonfire a little ways in front of us.

Alex and I bolted. It looked like the hostage camp where the students were supposed to be being held, but they had broken out when the alarm was raised. Alex saw something that made him change course and leave me to run at the camp. John E. jumped in where Alex left off. AJ had come over to this island, and began a song-and-dance routine that was a really funny blend of Monty Python and Christendom music.

Anyway, so John and I ran right at the guards, and...

...then I woke up.

Baseball

2008-07-17T06:37:00.004-04:00

It was another year at Christendom, and college baseball season was in full swing. I got asked to play baseball for the team. When I went to look for my uniform, I couldn't find it. Then I remembered that I turned it back in freshman year. I went outside to volunteer to be the van/bus driver, but they boarded the van and took off and left me. But oddly enough, they were only going to the other side of campus, so I ran over to watch them warm up and play.

Every baseball player had his gal on the van, and they all came out much like movie stars. The fans were on either side of a path screaming and waving, while Jeff S. and his gal came out, followed by Ben M. and his lady. Shortly after them came two very interesting couples: each C. boy had an R. girl. Michael and Bridget looked great as they exited the van, and Daniel waved to his fans (all da ladies) while Veronica shook out her red hair.

"Wait -- what?! No, Anthony: Bridget has the red hair. Veronica's hair is brown."

Not this time. Bridget still had her red hair, but Veronica's was definitely redder. I'm still scratching my head over this one...

Dreams...

2008-07-16T21:03:00.004-04:00

You know, I've been trying really hard to record my dreams -- or even remember them. I've had several fascinating dreams over the past few days, but they were just not quite memorable enough to remember less than two minutes after waking up. I meant this quite literally. I have an MP3 player/recorder right next to my bed for quick access. As soon as I wake up, I push record and talk into the voice recorder.

For instance, three night ago, I had this dream where I was visiting with a friend in the area, Ashley C. A couple people I didn't recognize were there as well, and we started talking about making our delivery. So I went and changed my clothes (from what to what, I have no idea). Our mission was to deliver medical supplies to a hospital. Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, not quite. For what are hospitals known, if not infamous? You're absolutely right: the backless gown. Well, somehow or another, the hospital convinces me (and only me) that I need to be wearing one of these things, and sure enough, I'm in one. No, I have nothing else on underneath. My clothes are gone. Eventually, after a decent amount of "negotiation", I get my clothes back, but not after people have had a lot of fun at my expense.

Two nights ago, I had what I called a "Star Trek" dream, but I don't remember what was so Star Trek-y about it. I vaguely remember a spaceship, but the bulk of the dream was about flying and low gravity environments. My jumping was equally proportional to that of a grasshopper, assuming a grasshopper was my size. The difference is that when I jumped up, I didn't fall straight back to the ground. I drifted slowly down, and was able to cover a lot of ground in the air. While I didn't land gracefully at first, it only took a couple jumps to get used to it. Then I discovered something which made the dream soooooo much cooler: I had a set of feathered angelic-style wings sprouting out of my back (think Angel/Archangel from the X-Men). Wings like this makes any dream awesome. At the next bound skyward, I spread my wings out to full extension (what I vaguely recall being somewhere between 15'-20'). Then, I took off and didn't land again. But that's a common theme in good dreams for me. And somehow, all this tied into a Star Trek theme. And somewhere in there, there were talking animals...

On a side note, my recordings to jog my memory more amusing than anything. I wish I could upload the audio files here, because I didn't know that I sounded so weird immediately after waking up.

Something about a new song...

2008-04-29T10:03:00.002-04:00

They say that the best way to remember a dream is to write it down as soon as you wake up. In the past, it's never been a problem to do just this. However, last night, I dreamed that I was working with a group on a song. In the dream, I was surrounded by people I didn't know, writing a song that I've never heard before. Well, let me rephrase that. I'd never heard the music before. I'd heard most of the lyrics before. With my musical "abilities", I'm much better with writing down music than I am with writing lyrics. I'm fact, I'm a terrible lyricist...

In my dream, there was a drummer, either one or two basses (I can't recall if it was acoustic or electric, although I think it was electric), two electric guitars (one of which was either an overdriven or a distortion guitar, I'm not certain), and a lead vocalist on one side, and the other side was a DJ (who I distinctly remember being African American), and a small squad of cheerleaders (all girls, no guys).

In any case, it opened with the bass guitar riffs, joined by the drummer, then joined by the first electric guitar, then joined by the overdriven/distortion guitar. The vocalist came in after the guitars were done playing around and had gone to a more-or-less stock riff that they had hit upon while playing around. After the first verse, the DJ put on a funky scratch with his tables, and when he was done rapping, the girls took over, while he continued scratching.

Meanwhile, I'm writing all this stuff down on a score sheet, or trying to. The problem is that the notes are all coming so fast, that I can't really keep up. (If you've ever seen it, think about the final composition of Mozart in the movie Amadeus. For this scene, I'm Salieri, and the bands are Mozart.)

The highlight of the dream was the music. The music was awesome. It was perfect for my adrenaline mix for the gym. It was lively, it had an awesome beat, and it had hard-hitting lyrics (granted, none of them were original -- I know I heard some Ludacris and Kriss-Kross in there). The problem was that there was no way to write all this down. I would have needed a recorder next to my bed to hum/sing/beatbox it in there. It would have been worth it, though...

And the sad thing is that my MP3 player is my alarm clock. It is right next to my head. And it has a recorder on it. Curses...

Mass in PJ's

2008-04-14T09:08:00.003-04:00

I was in my PJ's at Mass. I don't know why or where.

I was praying in the very front of a relatively modern church, and it was early in the morning. Next to me was my duffel bag with a change of clothes, a couple prayer books, and some music in it. As I was praying, this a minister (priest or deacon, I'm not sure) comes out from the sacristy onto the sanctuary. I look up quickly and only notice the vestments. Then I go back to my prayer book.

We all kneel down (the church is somewhat full at this point, and I'm still in my PJ's). The minister begins Mass. It's then that I notice that the minister isn't real minister, but a fake one. It becomes obvious the instant she opens her mouth. I'm still concentrating on my prayer book, so I still don't actually notice the gender of the priest, but in my subconscious, I know it's a woman, and I'm praying that my ears are fooling me. I refuse to look, because I don't want to get mad in the middle of my prayers.

As "Mass" continues, we all stand up appropriately, and the entire congregation shouts at me from behind, "Go change your clothes!!!" I realize that I'm still in my PJ's. The mock ceremony takes a turn for the worse, and the woman heads straight for the tabernacle. She puts in the tabernacle key, but it will not open the tabernacle. She fights with it to open, but it won't open. She gets all embarrassed and asks for help. We all just stand there looking at her, not saying or doing anything. I grab my duffel bag and walk out.

I head over to the restroom to change my clothes. I throw on some jeans and a T-Shirt. Then I remember the situation in the church. There's no way that I'm going to participate in the rest of that blasphemy, but if no one else in the church has a problem with it, then I'm not going to get in their way on their fast track to hell -- certainly not the right thing to do in real life, but it was a dream. I remember this building from a previous experience here, where I had taken a paper clip and picked the lock of a small case that held a book I wanted to see. It was in one of the halls that was leading to the church.

I go back to where this case was and, to my surprise, it's in the exact same condition it was when I picked the lock. I took the paper clip out and walked back to the church. My intention was to throw it at the people and shout, "BURN IN HELL!" Instead, I opened the door to a huge party going on. If you remember the closing scene of Star Wars I: the Phantom Menace, where Boss Nass holds up this blue ball and shouts "PEACE!", and everyone suddenly starts dancing, that's what I was faced with, except that she was holding a ciborium over her head. I looked for the culprit who had opened the tabernacle for her -- a dirty little mexican was standing right next to her, looking very pleased with himself.

I woke up to a mild adrenaline rush as I prepared to end this blasphemy in the style of Judas Machabeus...

Dreams when fighting something...

2008-01-03T23:12:00.000-05:00

Usually whenever I have a cold or a virus, I have these dreams where I'm either doing battle, or setting up battle formations, or something. For the past week or so, with the exception of last night, I've been dreaming that I've been setting up battle formations to ward off an enemy. The problem is that the enemy is already there, and has a much larger army than I do and is very well organized. As soon as I set up one formation or barricade, they either destroy or overrun it.

The funny thing is that dreams like this often cause a lot of physical motion while I'm asleep. Whether it's my foot jerking around, or my entire body looking like it's going into a seizure, it hardly ever wakes me up. So far, two people have both experienced this, and have both woken me up. The first time, I woke up sweating -- I had just been dodging what seemed like Sci-Fi giant bacteria flying at me, and I had the agility of Spiderman. The second time (two nights ago in the currently-running series), I woke up both sweating and breathing heavily, as though I had just run a marathon, and in my mind, I had been. There was an army of something coming after me. I didn't stand a chance. As I ran, I was setting up barriers of all kinds to slow th enemy, but no matter what it was, they kept coming: whether it was a concrete barrier, a 20' stone wall, or a legion of men (all me, of course), they either came through it, over it, and in no uncertain terms destroying everything in their path. Perhaps, it's because I keep running from it that I have not overcome whatever it is I've got yet.

War dream

2007-07-23T19:34:00.001-04:00

I had a funky dream last night. All I really remember is that there was a war going on. The dream zoomed in on one gigantic, futuristic-looking German tank, and the people inside it. There was a German officer in full dress uniform and a tomboy. The tomboy was very fascinated by this machine of war, battle tactics, and things of the sort. She was so fascinated, that she wanted to see and experience the cannon for herself.

She crawled into the cannon, and the enormous shell was loaded on top of her. She was actually sitting in a chamber at the base of the cannon, between the firing apparatus and shell, so the shell wasn't touching her. The officer saluted her, and fired the cannon. She went rocketing out right behind the shell, but the shell created a massive vortex behind it, causing her to get sucked back into the cannon, and disintegrate.

New car

2007-06-30T11:23:00.000-04:00

I dreamed that JD had recommended that I come in and take a look at this car that was being sold. I went in to check it out, and it was a new unmarked Ford Taurus Police Cruiser. It still had the lights (not the rack on top, but everywhere else) and the sirens, but aside from that, it was a normal car that I could drive everywhere. It was being sold for $1000, and yes, it was new. Sounded like a deal to me, so I bought it. It was a really sweet car.

I went around and visited some friends with it, but I don't remember who or what their reactions were. I do remember, though, that I took it to Christendom and parked it in the lot, but I left it in neutral and didn't use the parking brake. I walked away from the car, and when I turned around to look at it, the car had crept forward completely out of its parking spot, and someone else had parked there. I pushed it into another parking space. It was really easy to push around.

I woke up after that...

Shipwreck, and the island

2007-04-25T09:46:00.001-04:00

I cooked some food for me to take to work. I had three plastic to-go boxes, the kind that you get from Boston Market, with the black bottom and the clear top. In the first box was four stalks of broccoli, the second held some potatoes, and the third, blintzes. The broccoli looked oriental, because it had some funky spices, dark sauce, and a little bit of red pepper on it. The potatoes were cooked in such a way that I had small parts cooked in different ways: fried, mashed, baked, and boiled. There were six different styles of cooked potatoes, though. Mashed came in two styles: one was plain, the other was with olive oil and salt. Baked: one with a skin, cut and loaded with sour cream and all that stuff; the other baked and then cubed. The problem is that as I was making it, I ate the plain mashed potatoes. But I didn't want to admit that I had done so, so I took the other mashed potatoes and spread them out to make the box look full. There were three blintzes: cream cheese, blueberry, and one more kind, which I don't remember.

For some reason, I was at sea with the guys from Telogical: David, Lynn, Alex, and Paul. I don't knew where we were sailing to, but a hurricane arose, and the ship was torn in half. Alex, Lynn and Paul were in the back half, and David and I were in the front half. Oddly enough, the water was only about four feet deep. So, I jumped out of the ship, and began wading through the water. David, being David, stayed in the front of the ship, just watching and laughing that I was out in the water. Well, I went over to another hull fraction and found the three to-go boxes with the food in it, and brought them back over to where David was. He laughed that I had even bothered to go back and grab my food, but I felt justified in the fact that I would need it. Then, I grabbed the tip of the ship around it's very narrow nose from the top, basically pinching it between my upper arm and the side of my body, lifted, and began walking. It was kind of clumsy, so I handed David the to-go box with the broccoli, and then continued on (yes, still holding the other two boxes). In a sudden realization, I realized that the food must be soaked through. There was a little bit of seawater in it, but not that much. I turned the boxes over so that the seawater could drain out and then kept going. David was laughing still that I was saving the food and the nose tip of the ship.

Since the water was so shallow, there had to be land nearby. Sure enough, there was an island about twenty feet away. I somehow knew this island as the island Elizabeth (my twin sister) lived on with her family. Part of it looked like a city from the video game Oblivion, I went to her house, but she didn't recognize me. I wanted to see how long it would take, so I played the role of a salesman, and offered her the recipe for the blintzes. She tried the blueberry one, and I told her that I would sell her a quick kit to make them for $1.50. She said no, she couldn't do that, so I tried again with another style of blintz. She wasn't recognizing me at all. In any case, somehow, I managed to get invited inside, and I joined her, James, and AJ for dinner (I don't know where Anya or Mary Clare was). They had some guests over as well, so I sat back and watched them dance in the manner of the folk of the isle...

There were four dancers, all walking in a small clockwise circle with their right hands diagonally up, joined to form a point in the middle. The music was very simple, almost a bluegrass kind of music, and it had the lyrics, "And when you're dancing, you're dancing..." (I think the last line was "You're dancing all the night,", but I'm not really sure...). I was intrigued by this dance, because it looked simple enough that I might be able to do it, possibly even without messing it up too badly. And right about then, I woke up...

Formal dream

2007-03-15T06:44:00.000-04:00

This was a rather short dream. For some reason, I dreamed that it was the day of spring formal. There was a special Mass going on that day in the place where the formal was going to be, meaning that it wasn't a church, but more of a hall. Obviously, Christendom wouldn't do that in real life, but that's what my dream had them doing.

Adam W. was one of the acolytes at Mass, and he was given a camera to take pictures with. On the recessional, just before he passed through the doors, he turned around to get a shot of Mike McG. (who was the Master of Ceremonies for mass), in front of the priests. Mike slowed way down, but the camera took too long to focus, so he had to keep going. Adam tried to snap pictures of the priests, but the same thing happened. He had to content himself with snapping pictures of people as they left the church.

I woke up, wondering what time it was, because I had to go to the gym...

Gym

2007-02-08T08:53:00.001-05:00

I went to the gym. I was training with Emily for an odd biathalon: volleyball and stunt biking. She was working on bringing me and Matt M. up to speed. Outside the room we were training in were about 50 little girls doing the same thing...

Freaky house

2006-12-19T09:47:00.000-05:00

I bought the house was right next to Ken and Alaina. It was a cool design: two floors, each with furnaces. These furnaces were actually little jet nozzles that blasted regular fire around the base of every room to keep them warm. So, instead of an actual furnace where the flame was covered, this was an uncovered flame. It was really cool! Well, OK, it was really hot. The basement of the house was in constant flames. This was the heart of the furnace. All the heat that came into the house came from this fire. If you needed to fuel it, there was a door in the middle of the home where you could feed it wood or some other form of fuel. This was the main fuel door, but there were other fuel doors as well. For some odd reason they looked more like graves...

When I bought the house the person told me the story behind it, and why it was so inexpensive.

There was a man and his mother living there. They were known throughout the neighborhood as the peaceful sort, and everyone liked them. They were always having people over, or helping out their neighbors with anything they needed help with, big or little, and never asked for anything in return. Nevertheless, people came to them to help them out all the time. It was a very good situation, and life was going well. Somehow, the man became possessed, and killed his mother there in the furnace. No one is sure how or really why, but when one is possessed by a demon, there isn't much reason why except that they are driven by pure evil. However, when he was forcing his mother through the fuel door, the spirit left him, and he fell through the door, taking her with him. It isn't known whether he went unconscious and fell into the furnace with his mother under him, or if the demon shoved them both through. In any case, all the mother saw was her son pushing her into the furnace. Her soul demanded vengeance for the evil wrought upon her, and it stayed in the house after she died. His soul also remained in the house, but it became one with the furnace. The demonic possession allowed other demons into the house, and one also came specifically to possess the building itself.

Well, being Catholic, I knew that I had to have the house blessed, but before I did that, I wanted to clean it up. Since news travels fast, Donna came by to visit me in the house. I hadn't seen her in quite some time, and I let her in and we chatted for a few minutes while I was cleaning up. Shortly after being let in, she got possessed by one of the random souls in the house, and she came after me to kill me. I knocked her out.

I figured that I needed to warn other people, so I ran next door to warn Ken and Alaina to not come over at all until I told them that it was all right to visit. It would not be safe for them over there. As I was about to leave, I saw the possessed Donna standing right outside the screen door, staring at me with pure hatred in her eyes. Ken was about to let her in, but I told him not to. When she saw that he was not going to let her in, she smiled and somehow squeezed through the screen of the screen door (in reality, there isn't a screen door on the house -- it's a glass storm door). However, the angels protecting Ken and Alaina's house prevented her from entering their house, so she was stuck between the doors.

I had to resolve this situation quickly. Since she was stuck in between the doors on the side, I used the front of their house and ran back to my house. I figured that the best way to dispel the spirits was to start with the furnace. I challenged them spirits by flushing water down the graves. The house seemed to come to life with this, but before I could do anything else, I woke up.

Best Buy, a Pirate Ship, and the Electric Chair

2006-12-13T09:43:00.000-05:00

This dream was friggin' weird. I was working at Best Buy and I sold Alex a new computer set. It was a Compaq Presario system with all the newest technology. Alex's dad was there. He saw the computer, and he really liked it. We loaded it up into the back of Alex's new truck (a Ford F-150), and since I was just getting off work, I rode with them. The computer was put onto the tailgate (which was not closed). Mr. S. drove the truck with the computer sitting on the edge of the tailgate, and tore out of the parking lot. He was really excited about the new truck and the new computer. He took a back way home, but the road suddenly ended and the truck, the computer, and everyone in it fell into the ocean.

When I landed in the ocean, there was no sign of Alex or his dad (or, for that matter, the truck or the computer). Off in the distance, I saw a small boat, and I started swimming towards it. They must have seen me, too, because I got to them really quickly, and they offered to take me on board. I quickly agreed, and I came on board. I asked them what they were doing in the middle of the ocean in such a small boat, and they told me that they were looking for a ship. They explained to me that the ship they were looking for was the greatest ship known to exist. It was meant for both water and the air. It's previous owners had all died, and the ship sunk. However, the ship was indestructible -- all it needed was a crew. Sounded like quite an adventure, and although I don't particularly care for sailing the seas, I love flying. We searched on for a while, and we chanced to see something funny up ahead. We looked down into the ocean, and sure enough, we were right on top of it. We all jumped overboard and swam down to the sleeping behemoth of a ship. As we all assumed a position, the ship began to rise straight up of its own accord, and we were soon at the surface. All the water drained out, and the gold trimming on the ship gleamed as though it was freshly polished. We looked around to see if we could tell who the last owners were -- on the flag pole was mounted the well known pirate flag, the Jolly Roger. It was soon apparent that we weren't going to change the flag, so I opted to live in the moment and act all piratey. Anyway, the captain ordered us all to take our places, and proceeded to get the ship airborne. After hovering for a few seconds amid cheers of the sailors, we took off to the moon.

When we landed, the military was ready for us. I was caught, tried and convicted as a traitor to the country for being a pirate. I and all my shipmates were taken to prison to await our final moments. I was given the chair as my method of execution, and the right to a final confession was denied me. As they led me out of my cell and towards the execution chamber, I saw a line of people in front of me, consisting of all ages. I saw, much to my surprise, that "all ages" included children. They were all coming to see me die. The children were excited, the women and mothers were crying, and the men and fathers were very stalwart -- quite a mixed reaction, and one that I would egotistically expect. Then I saw that the line was not going into the viewing area -- the line was going into the electrocution chamber. Everyone was asked to sit in their chairs, and they were all fastened to the seats. I then heard one of the children ask when the movie was going to start. His mother, trying her best to be brave, told him very soon. I looked around in horror when I saw that there was nothing that I could do to get them out or to get myself out. I had already been fastened down, and most of my shipmates has already been executed. The walls of room that we were in suddenly became transparent, and the bodies of all my comrades could been seen. As I felt the spike of electricity snap through my body, I woke up.

A wedding and a funeral

2006-12-11T07:52:00.000-05:00

This is the second time that I've had a dream within a dream. Odd, huh?

The first part of the dream was a wedding. (This was most definitely inspired by Josh's wedding.) I was at St. Pius X, one of my old parishes in Dallas, and it was my wedding day. I don't know to whom. All I know is that I was getting married. I was looking around for evidence that I had prepared for this wedding at all, and I couldn't find any. There were groomsmen (but I couldn't find them), the bride's family was there (although I couldn't identify them), there were bridesmaids (I can't remember who), there were hundreds of guests (bride's family, even though the wedding was in my hometown), the church was decked out (looked more like an emperor's coronation than my wedding), and everything was almost ready to go. Everyone was dressed to impress...

...except me. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I was wandering around the church in absolute shock, thinking to myself, "Why am I doing this? What is going on? Who is the unfortunate girl?" and other such thoughts. I exited the church, and I walked down the steps looking for the groomsmen, or at least someone to explain to me what in the world was going on. Suddenly, the doors across the way burst open, and out marched all the sacristans that I have ever known from Christendom, all dressed in morning coats with an ensemble very much like the Knights of Columbus. Daniel and Brendan were in the lead, scanning the area for something. I approached them, and they saw me -- apparently, I was what they were searching for. Ken and Alex were laughing at my attire, while Fadi, John E., and Adam just tried to angle me in the direction I needed to go. Daniel was speaking to me in his commanding tone, telling me to go get dressed, as Brendan was giving me preparation advice -- I think it was how to put the sword on. Everyone else was just waiting for these guys to get done so that they could get into the church on time.

Anyway, so without much in the way of explanation, I went through the door that they told me to go through, and I was in a kitchen. On a counter top in the back corner was my attire, and it was definitely gaudy. I looked at it, and began putting it on, but I thought to myself, "No, this is a bad idea." I woke up when I sat down and tried to make sense of it all. I think it was about the time when I was examining my finances and conscience simultaneously to see if I was prepared in any way for this. And, just so you know, I wasn't...

A dream in a dream

2006-12-09T09:42:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure of the structure of the dream I had last night. It was either two separate dreams, or it was a dream in a dream. I don't remember much about the first part, except that the first dream was a nightmare full of monsters, and I was honestly terrified of it. I woke up crying, if that means anything. For the record, I usually enjoy nightmares. They are a thrill ride, but not this time.

The second part was also a lot of fun, but I can't remember much about it either. All I remember was that it was not a nightmare, and it was really cool...

Josh's wedding

2006-11-12T07:49:00.000-05:00

I dreamed that the day had come for Josh's wedding, but I had still not written the speech yet. I was walking down the street with Joe P. looking for the church where Josh was going to get married in when I stumbled across a Best Buy. I realized that they have paper and a pen in the back of the place where they kept their inventory and back-stock. I went into the back of the store and started up a conversation with the girls in the warehouse. I told them of my dilemma and how I was a former Best Buy employee, and they gave me paper and a pen. I thanked them and left.

And that's about where it ends...

Grizzly Bear

2006-11-01T14:14:00.000-05:00

This was a bit of an odd dream. I dreamed that I was driving along and I saw a dead tree further up the road behind a white picket fence, and in that tree was a bear. It was just sitting there looking at me. I thought it was a black bear, so I made sure to be careful around it, but I wasn't too terribly worried. The closer I got, the more that I saw that I was wrong. It was a brown bear. I was a bit worried about that. I finally got really close to it, and I saw that it was a grizzly. I freaked out a little, but kept driving. After all, it was waiting for me to pass by. I had the right-of-way. What was it going to do, attack me?

Then I saw that the grizzly in the tree was just a little one, as a gigantic one arose from behind the white picket fence. This bear stood up on its hind legs, and was almost as tall as the tree. It looked this way and that, waited for me to pass, and then crossed the street. The smaller one (which my brain decided was a full-sized female grizzly) roared for the larger (male) to wait, and then it also crossed the street.

Odd, huh?

Another new car

2006-09-29T14:14:00.000-04:00

I bought a new car for $900 from Ida F. I'm not sure why I did, because the car was a complete wreck. It was twisted, not just six, but seven ways from Sunday, and in general, I was not too happy with my purchase. However, I thought, "Hey, I can fix this! It'll be great when I'm done!"

This car was a Chevy Cavalier. It was a cute little car, or at least it had been. Some repairs had been done, but not enough, and the repairs were more like temporary patches and some "quick fixes".

The front side had been torn up, and, in an effort to hide this, the frame of the car and the seats had all been reversed. When you were inside the car, you sat forward, looking out the rear window, with the back of the front seat against your chest. The steering wheel was in front of the seat as you had your chest against it, or behind it, if you prefer to think about it like that. You had to reach around the seat to grab the steering wheel.

On the new front, which was the trunk, there were two makeshift headlights. These headlights made the Cavalier look rather like an old tractor with the bubble headlights. I don't quite know how they worked with the brake lights, because they had not been transferred to the back, so all the lights were on the front (back?) of the car.

Also, where the bumper should have been was a huge gap. There was simply no bumper there at all. And this car was classified as fixed...

Needless to say, I flipped out just a little bit...

I walked around the car, and saw all of these changes. I thought to myself, I need to get inside this car. How would I fit?

The first thing I noticed was that the transmission gears and shifter had been inverted. It was in the following pattern:

2 4 R
1 3 5

The first three gears were the only working gears. However, all three of them hit the reverse gear -- which sent the car forward when you were sitting in it. Shifting gears was thus, rather pointless.

There was one good thing: the frame was in perfect condition, in spite of the fact that the body was virtually destroyed. I woke up thinking gleefully about all the customization possibilities (and nightmares)...

"Jesus Dream"

2006-09-08T08:42:00.000-04:00

I had this dream some time ago. It was long before this post, and long before I even started a blog. A lot of people already know about this dream. If you've already heard it, and this will be your Nth time, you can skip this post...

Before I get started, there were two major influences on this dream: Mel Gibson's the Passion of the Christ, and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, just so you know up front. Yes, they mix -- quite well...

I should also warn people who have not heard this dream before that it portrays me as Jesus Christ. If you believe that this concept is offensive, then please, stop reading. I don't want to have an angry person on my hands because of pieces of what my mind made up. Thus, without further ado, I bring you probably the weirdest dream I've ever had, as well as the most vivid, and probably the most popular...

+ + +

The sun was beginning to set as I ran. I looked around me, and all I saw was a desert, much like the area outside the city of Jerusalem. In fact, that's where I was. It was rocky, and I was running away from the city. I stayed near any mountains that were there, because I didn't want them to find me.

I had been running for some time, and I was beginning to feel it. I raced into the shade of a much larger mountain, but I still didn't stop. I stumbled and fell, but I got right back up and kept running. I looked down at my clothes. I wondered why I was wearing a long robe and sandals. I barely like sandals, and I don't own a robe except for my bathrobe. And what was I doing in Jerusalem?

The dream camera panned out, and I got to looked at myself running along the mountainside. I was a man who looked a lot like Jesus. A whole lot. I suddenly realized what I was doing: I was running from the Jews. But why? Simple: I didn't just look like Jesus, I was Him. I had lived the full life, and I had ridden triumphantly into Jerusalem on the foal of the ass. I had the Last Supper with the disciples, but I could not go any further. I was absolutely terrified, because I knew what was to come next.

I continued running as fast as I could along the rocky desert terrain. (Picture, if you will, terrain very much like what was in the movie Passion of the Christ.) I ran with no end in sight, but desperate to find a hiding place -- anything to get away. Something had to be out there, but I had no idea where it was, or even for what I was looking. All I knew is that it had to hide me, and I had to find it.

The drums indicating the moving men behind me could be heard faintly in the distance. There was no arguing whether or not they were on my trail. Time was all that separated me from them -- time and, I hoped, a great distance. The resolve kicked in again: keep running. Panicking over my inability to hide, I switched courses, running around the base of a mountain towards another one.

There! Something was in the distance! I know it -- I saw it! But I couldn't tell what it was. I listened intently as I ran: the drums were still there, my pursuers had not given up on me already. For all I know, they would be on top of me in no time flat. For all I know, they already saw me. That last thought pumped adrenaline through my veins and I put on a burst of speed -- as fast as one can run in sandals. And, suddenly, I saw my hiding place. It was gloriously simple -- no one would ever think to look for me there!

So, I ran towards this, my miracle of miracles, my saving hiding place. It was a porta potty, large and blue with a white top and sides, hidden very securely between a rock and a dead tree (and yet ironically towering over both), on the side of a desert rocky mountain. "Surely," I thought to myself, "no one will think to look for me here."

--SIDE NOTE--
I hope you picked up the dripping sarcasm in the previous paragraph. I tried to drench it as best I could. Remember that in spite of the fact that my mind is making me the Son of God, I'm still the fool you know and tolerate.
--END SIDE NOTE--

So, I hurl myself into this porta potty, and slam the door behind me. It had no bad odors, so it was either new, freshly cleaned, or had a nice air circulation system -- this is all beside the point, I know, but I know that some of you are actually wondering just this.

Anyway, so myself + hurled in + no scent = security. Kind of like blue 'n' white + grey rocks + dead trees + desert foliage + pebbles + rocky desert mountain and similar terrain = camouflage. Capishe? Right. We're back on track.

So, I'm sitting there, giving my legs a rest, and I open the door just a crack. I can still hear the drums, but they are definitely louder. I watched as the dust became stirred up, as pebbles started to bounce, and I knew that the men were right on top of me. And sure enough, there they were. They were running in full Jewish army uniform, straight from the Passion, but in the orcish formation from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I watched in horror as I saw more soldiers then I ever expected to see come jogging around the mountain side. There was a literal army after me. They were all just jogging, and doing some sort of cadence, but I didn't really want to open the door wider to hear it.

After a minute or so of watching lines of men jog by, the end was in sight. The rear was brought up by one man, who was scanning the land. He saw the porta potty, and kept moving. He suddenly stopped, and stared directly at it, as though just noticing it for the first time -- as though seeing me watch him from the barely open door.

About this time, the porta potty started playing music: Angels by Gregorian was blasting out all over this desert region. This was a wonderful addition to my hiding place.

I stepped quickly back from the door. Had he seen me? I realized that any sudden movement would definitely give my position away, so I peered through the crack again. The man looked puzzled. He surveyed the area and compared it to the porta potty. I prayed that he was just wondering how an American invention from almost 2000 years in the future would end up in his time. He got the look on his face, and ran ahead. I could only assume the worst. He had seen me, and he was reporting me to the chief. I had to form a plan, and quickly. I know! There is a side door inside this porta potty that I would go through, and hide in the extra compartment! Genius!

--SIDE NOTE--
"Side door?" you may ask, and rightfully so. How many porta potties do you know have these two compartments? None. I should invent one. Why, you may ask? Easy. Say you really have to go to the bafroom, but the darn thing is in use. All you have to do is open the main compartment door, say, "Excuse me, just coming through," and then make your way into the secondary compartment. That's why. The added convenience of two places for the price of one. Never mind that the person in the main compartment will be caught pants down -- all that matters is your relief. Besides that, they'll forgive you. Place this as an advertisement in a 50's style B&W TV commercial and you've got yourself a hit! Sure to bring in the bookoo bucks! We'll call it the Porta-Tony, since it was my idea.

Anyway...
--END SIDE NOTE--

The camera now traveled out of my oh-so-clever hiding place, and hovered high in the air (about 15-20 stories up, I'd guess), high enough to see that the army had jogged their way in a large circle around my hiding place, cutting off any escape for me. There was no way out now. I'd be lucky to survive for the next few minutes -- of course, I didn't know this at the time, because I was still contemplating how to escape.

As the Jewish army completed its circle, it closed in. Time was up, and there was no escaping it anymore for me. Suddenly, elves (yes, another LOTR reference) appeared, but they weren't regular elves. These elves moved as fast as lightning, and they were as powerful as it, too. All you could see was lightning bolts being shot across the center of the circle, and knocking down soldiers left and right. These lightning bolts were the elven arrows being fired faster than you could see and with insane accuracy. However, it seemed that as soon as they had arrived, they left, because their quivers were empty. They had killed more than half of the army, but that still left a huge number of men left to contend with. As these men were helping their fallen comrades, the earth trembled slightly. They looked around -- nothing. Yet the earth shook again, harder this time. Puzzled, they looked at the ground, and behold: another quake, much more powerful than the first two, knocked the army off their feet!

Each time the army tried to regain its footing, another thunderous pulse could be heard on the ground. It was rather like that scene from Jurassic Park, where the footsteps of the approaching Tyrannosaurus Rex can be seen rippling a glass of water, except that this was the land that was moving. Anyway, the camera is still at its angle, angled down towards the porta potty with the army surrounding it, and the cause of these quakes steps into view. There appears the left shoulder of a massive angel. I'm sorry to say that it was a stereotypical, cartoon, gladiator angel: male, curly blond hair (cut in a longish gladiator style), huge muscles, double-edged sword, and giant golden halo hovering above his head. Don't get me wrong, in this case, Im very glad to have this particular avenging angel's help in the matter.

Anywho, the Jews run for their lives, many stumbling over their own feet, the feet of others, and their fallen comrades as the angel glares down at them. His eyes flash fire as he surveys his opponents, and as the last one of them escapes, he sheathes his sword. He looks at the porta potty that he knows I'm in, waiting for me to come out. (BTW, yes, "Angels" is still playing. In fact, about this time, it has practically reached the climax of the piece.) After waiting a few seconds, he realizes that I'm not goign to come out, so he bends down and picks up the porta potty. He opens the door and -- I'm not there. Realizing the Porta-Tony convenience of two compartments, he then reaches inside, and opens the second door. Surprise! I'm not in there either!

Angels are very intelligent creatures, and this one was no exception. I couldn't run, but I wasn't in either compartment. Where was I? The simple answer: pop the top off this Tony and check it that way. Sure enough, I hadn't fled. I had managed to wedge myself into the space between the blue siding and the white rounded side -- inside the speaker. He grabs me my the scruff of my neck (if I had one -- it was actually by the robe), lifts me out, and holds me up in front of his face. I'm very ashamed of myself, and trying to shrink into my robe at this point, because I know I'm going to get it now.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asks me, in as nice a voice as he can muster, considering how far I had deviated from the Divine Plan. I couldn't answer him -- I was speechless. I tried to think of something, I tried to say something -- no words would come. I only shrugged, and hung my head in shame.

"You do know what you are supposed to be doing right now, right?" he persisted. I could only answer in the affirmative in all truth, but I still could not get any words to form. I only nodded my head, knowing what would come next.

"Then, I ask you again: What do you think you're doing?" I felt like a child. I wanted to say things like, "I don't want to do X, Y, or Z", but I knew that answering so was simply out of the picture. I had a mission to fulfill, and humanity to redeem. Quite literally, all the people of the world depended upon me if they ever wanted to go to heaven, and my fear was denying them this, their last hope.

The angel then looked down at the Porta-Tony he was still holding. Angels had indeed reached the climax of the piece and was bridging with the drums, strings, and bells goign off very loudly, and he turned to me again, with a different expression on his face.

"And why are you listening to this?!"

I had no response. I was taken completely off-guard. I wasn't sure why -- it just started playing. But why was it playing? Oh! I know! It was my alarm clock! I was thrilled that I knew the answer and that I had a good answer for the angel. As I opened my mouth, bursting with a childish pride, to answer him, I froze, because I suddenly realized something:

{pop back to reality: I wake up with a start}

Alarm clock?! Darn it all! It's time to get up!

+ + +

The way that I prefer thinking about this dream is that this is close to what would have happened if I had been chosen to redeem mankind, instead of God. Thus, I skirt the accusations of blasphemy. No, really. If a human being knew what was going to happen, and he knew how much pain he would have to undergo to redeem mankind, he would have to be an extremely holy man to stand his ground. I don't think that I could now, or ever could have in my entire life. Not only would I have been terrified, I would have felt unworthy to actually attempt -- nay, even think to attempt to fill the role of Redeemer of Man. God is truly all-wise in His plans, and not I. My ridiculous sufferings have probably not done much to save a single soul, much less the souls of the entire history of humanity.

Anyway, so on that note, I'll close. This dream has taken me months to type, and I hope you enjoy it. Some of you have heard it before, and others will find this one to be new, and probably unique. I invite your thoughts on the matter, if you have any, in the comments. Before you tell me, though, I know -- I have a superiority complex with delusions of grandeur. I know, I know... :)

God Bless! Happy dreaming!

Lord of the Rings Dream

2006-09-03T05:55:00.002-04:00

It was the middle of the Quest to destroy the one Ring. The Fellowship had already been disbanded, and Frodo and Sam were on their own. I was part of the defenders of ring, even though I was only a child. There was with us a great wizard, along the lines of Gandalf, but he was dressed entirely in black. There was also a living magic rope (think of it like the magic carpet from Disney's Aladdin) and a timber wolf. As a child, I was not alone with this group. Dad had his old Ford F150 pickup truck, and he and Liz were with me.

The timber wolf and the magic rope had set out on their own way toward the ice queen's palace. Frodo was already on his way there, but he could not take a direct route -- Sauran would be looking for him. Along the same lines, he would be looking for any of his helpers. Thus, the wolf and the rope raced along from where they had indirectly joined the party to the Frozen Wasteland in the North.

--SIDE NOTE--
I'm using a map to supplement my knowledge of the area. I don't have the thing memorized, but I do recall from point A to point B. In fact, if you look at the map I drew, you'll see the different paths. I'm sorry that I had to edit the map instead of leaving all photos intact like our friends at Le Chasseur Maudit, but I can't be expected to live up to the high standards that they set for reporters everywhere...

BTW, if the map that I edited isn't showing up in this post, blame Blogger. I uploaded it only a few times...
--END SIDE NOTE--

Beginning roughly at Gray Havens (next to the Gulf of Lune, furthest west on the map), Dad, Liz and I hugged the mountain line northward until we shot east to cross the river. Fortunately for us, the river had gotten significantly lower. The lowest part was crossable. Dad charged the truck into it, but forgot to turn on 4x4, so we were stuck. At this point our vehicle was less of a truck than a boat, and wheels don't do a lot submerged in water and not resting on the ground. We drifted along like this until we go to the other side. The river tossed the front end of the truck up, where Liz and I scrambled out. We pulled out our bows and arrows and made mini-harpoons out of them, but to no avail. Dad was finally able to engage the 4x4, and he was able to drive the truck out. We looked back at the way we came -- it was heavily guarded by hostile forces that had chased us once we left the shadow of the mountain. There was no possibility of turning back now.

We then drove northbound along the edge of the river. We encountered an army that was on its way down south to protect the river border we had just crossed. They tried to stop us, but the truck was next to impossible to stop going as fast as it was. Dad drove on through them, plowing through them like they weren't there.

Further ahead, the timber wolf and the rope were also on their way. They were way north of us, and were going across the Ice Bay. This was monitored by the ice queen's forces, and sure enough, one of their security cameras caught them, taking pictures of both the wolf and the rope as they jumped and slid down a short cliff.

The black wizard was already at the Ice Queen's palace, getting a feel as to whether or not she was friendly to the cause. It turned out that she was fairly neutral -- she was uncomfortable with Sauran being the ultimate, because she wanted to be the ultimate, so in a sense, she was on our side. The fact that she had all of us coming to her turf without invitations made her nervous, and so she had sent her armies. The Black Wizard did his best to convince her to call them back and not engage any of us, but she took it to mean that he was trying to bury a threatening situation. She did not take kindly to that, and summoned her guard.

The black wizard made his exit, but there was an attempt to arrest him. He fled, escaping capture. He fled away from the palace by an open route, and returned through magic to his special room in the palace, which (oddly enough) no one knew about, even though it was his room (well, his old room, when he used to work for the ice queen). Using his wizardry, he knew that the rope and the wolf had been detected, and that the queen would not take so kindly to them, so he tried to send them a signal. I woke up with him reaching out telepathically to all the party members...

Speeeeeeed........

2006-08-31T08:40:00.000-04:00

I dreamed that it was time to get a new car. In the spirit of this, I went to a user car dealership. It was a small dealership, and his selection was very limited. Two cars caught my eye: one was a modified Nissan Sentra, and the other was a 2001 Ford Mustang Cobra.

The Sentra was a red hatchback. (No, the car does not come in a hatchback model.) I looked closely at it. Beneath one of the taillights was a dent, positioned in the same place as the dent that's on the green Sentra that I owned. I looked at the owner and asked him about it. He apparently knew the vehicle's history rather well. He told me that this was the same car that I had owned. Before I had time to contradict him, he told me it's full recent history.

The car had been stolen while it was sitting at Dane's. In an attempt to hide the vehicle, the thief had painted the car, but that wasn't good enough. Thus, he converted the back end into a hatchback. He was still caught, and the car was put up for sale here, because the rightful owner lived in the area.

Stunned into silence, I looked at my old car. Not wishing to go back to the ways of the past, I got the Mustang. A good friend of mine used to own one. I've driven a couple since then, and my interest in Ford's Pony Car has most certainly not gone down. I just wasn't sure how it would fit my lifestyle...

Anyway, I drove the car off the lot, and headed to Christendom. It was late in the evening, so I crashed at Dane's place. Early the next morning, I drove out to Old St. Mary's for a High Mass. The Mustang definitely cut some time off the journey. On the way back, I did more fancy driving, and I really fell in love with the car. My only problem is that there just wasn't enough room for people. Sure, small people could fit in the back, but it just didn't have the leg room that people my size would need for any kind of long drive...

With this in mind, I returned the car to the dealership. The owner wasn't there: instead, there was a sign on the door, saying where he was. Instead of driving the Mustang out, I parked it, put the keys away, took the keys to the Sentra, and drove it over to where the owner was.

We discussed the swap. He agreed with me: the Sentra would fit me better than the Mustang, mostly because it was more economical, and it had more room. I drove him back to the dealership, and we did the swap paperwork.

As I drove the car away, I continued to notice all sorts of cool stuff that had been done. The thief had taken the stereo, but had replaced it with one that was between the front seats. The CD player, tape desk, controls, equalizer, everything was on the driver's right, and conveniently located so that he didn't have to scoot forward to reach the stereo. The dashboard had been replaced: there was no spot for the old stereo anymore, just a slick new dashboard console that offered more leg room underneath. In the back, the passenger seats had the edges cut away, and in the place of where the fabric used to be were thin tower speakers. This provided the car with much better sound than it had before.

I tested the car's speed. It had improved since I drove it last, but it wasn't as good as the Mustang. I'm sure that if I wanted that, I could modify the engine to do just that, but for now, I was just fine with a more economical car.

As I drove to Christendom, enjoying the old made new, I woke up...

Inside a video game

2006-08-25T08:43:00.000-04:00

I don't know what I did yesterday that made me dream of this at all. I worked out for about an hour and-a-half, I said my prayers, I put music into Cakewalk, and I watched a couple Homestar Runner clips. My evening menu consisted of two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a small dish of strawberry yogurt. If you can figure out how I got this from all that, be my guest...

Also, a person that I'm sure everyone here knows shows up later. I mean absolutely no offense to this person. Confused? Keep reading...

To start off with, I was playing an old video game, Doom II. I've played the game enough to know most of the levels quite well. The odd thing was that the game looked a lot better than it had ever looked before. I looked around in the game. Everything looked very realistic. I looked down. I saw my feet, and a very sweet gun. I looked back up, surprised, because in Doom II, you never see your feet, and you only see the barrel of your gun. It suddenly hit me: I wasn't playing it. I was the main character! (Justin or Jonathan, are you reading this?) I was holding an old--but still very sweet--rocket launcher, and I was hunting aliens and demons. Sweet. Bring it on!

--SIDE NOTE--
The nice thing about being in a video game and realizing that it's a video game is that you have a lot more control that you would normally think. It's rather like when you are dreaming but then you realize it's a dream. You can take full control of the dream, by either letting things go as they are, or by simply altering the whole thing.
--END SIDE NOTE--

I began running, something you normally can't do with nine fully-loaded weapons on you, and a backpack containing extra ammo for all of them. If you've ever played Doom II, you know that these aren't just various pistols. Your starting weapon is a pistol, but if you look hard enough, you'll find a chain saw at the very beginning. (If you don't, there's always your fists...) The next weapon is a single-barrel shotgun, followed by a double-barrel shotgun (two separate weapons, and you get to keep both), a chaingun (or a gatlin' gun, depending upon what you what to call it), a rocket launcher, a plasma gun, and a BFG9000 (which takes the ammo of the plasma cannon, using 80 rounds per shot, and dealing sick amounts of damage to everything in the room). And I had the rocket launcher out, loaded and ready to go. What's funny about this is that my personal favorite was the plasma gun, even over the BFG9000...

Anyway, so I went sprinting along this rather familiar looking outdoors area, looking for something evil to blow up. But everywhere I went, there was nothing. It was as though I had already completed the level, but I was missing one key. I do that all the time. I'll just miss one thing in a level, and then after I've killed off everything, I'll run around and pick up all the ammo I missed, while I hunt (and hunt and hunt) for the one hidden key. I kept running around, but there was nothing...

I finally went into a building. There were bodies of the evil ones everywhere -- too bad I missed all the fun. I heard something coming from one of the rooms though, and I readied my launcher. I opened the door, and there was a room full of barons of hell and hell knights. They were all facing away from me. In their midst was a large cyberdemon, who was facing me. In the first instant, it looked like the smaller demons were taking orders from the cyberdemon. Suddenly the cyberdemon, seeing me, opened fire. He hit one of the barons of hell, who did not take kindly to it. The rocket splash damage also hit other demons, who had the same reaction. They started firing their energy balls upon the cyberdemon. I saw a way for this to get ugly. I ran back and forth behind the group. In an attempt to shoot me, the cyberdemon hit more of these barons and knights, causing them all to turn against him. I quickly exited the room, just in case any of them noticed me, and also, to avoid any potential damage.

--SIDE NOTE--
This part of the dream is one room of an actual level from Doom II.
--END SIDE NOTE--

The rocket fire slowly subsided, and the room became silent with one last explosion. I couldn't tell who had survived from the sounds. When I opened the door to investigate, I saw two barons of hell and a hell knight still alive. Their comrades were all dead. The remaining three turned on me. I fired off a single rocket at them, knocking back the hell knight. Then I realized the power I might have in the game. I put away the rocket launcher and prepared to see what I could do.

As anticipated, the fire didn't stop. The three beings launched their energy balls at me. I caught all three of the energy balls and just held them for a second or two. The beings looked at me in utter disbelief -- I guess no one has ever done that before. They fired off another volley, and I caught them as well. I merged all the energy into one large one, but before I could launch it at them, they had fired off another volley. I knew I could catch the energy, but what else could I do? As the energy approached, I swung my fist, effectively reflecting them all back to their originators. Frustrated, they charged me. I launched the energy ball at them. The force of the energy that I had packed was more powerful then a rocket, and actually blasted them through a wall into the next room. Quite satisfied with my abilities, I sauntered on through the new hole...

...into an office. At the desk sat two burly men, and Therese O. The men were cheesed off, and Therese just sat there letting them rant. From their rantings, it was clear that the two men were the barons, and that Therese had been the knight. In spite of the fact that the knights are inferior to the barons, it was also clear that she was their leader. While they were raving, she was simply sitting behind the desk in the executive chair. It was clear that she was not happy with the situation either, but it was done, and there was nothing that she could do about it.

One of the men came up to me, yelling something. I just stood there was a slight smirk on my face and let him rant. It was about all he could do anyway. As he walked back to the table, I actually began to feel a little sorry for them. The way that the guys were acting, it was as though they had never been defeated, and this was their first taste of something that wasn't victory.

The same guy suddenly spun around and launched a fireball at me. I had been half-expecting it, but wasn't really prepared at this close range. Still, I noticed it, and without moving a muscle, I stopped the fireball dead in its tracks. I sent the fireball back at the guy, but it was only powerful enough to forcibly make him sit down. He started to cry.

I looked at him in disbelief. A baron of hell was crying. His crying started up the other one. I could only think of one response, and it was sarcastic:

"What, do you guys need a hug?"

"Yes," was their response, also taking me by surprise.

Hopefully, I could surprise them all back, so I geve the first one a hug. He cried on my shoulder like a little kid. I've never felt so uncomfortable in my whole life. I shouldn't say that, because the next two were just as awkward. The other guy got up and made a group hug effort, so I offered my other arm to him. The same thing happened. I wondered to myself, "Why did I say yes? These guys ... geez!" When they were finally done, they returned to their seats, sniffling a little. I looked at Therese, who looked rather embarassed by her comrades' behavior. I asked her the same question. The guys piped up, "He's a great hugger!" (Like I said, uncomfortable, but it gets worse.) She said sure, she'll take one. So I hugged her. Her response?

"Eh, he's not that good..."

Feeling extremely awkward, my dream suddenly twisted out of that into a completely different spin. Sadly, I don't remember the second half of the dream. The second half had almost nothing to do with the first half, and I remember waking up feeling a whole lot better than I did when my dream jumped tracks. I just can't remember. I guess I'll have to end on the awkward note and see if it will come back to me...

Uh ... you're what?

2006-08-16T09:40:00.001-04:00

I had a very wierd dream last night. There aren't too many details in it, so this should be a pretty quick read...

I was wandering around a mall which I didn't know. I don't know what I was looking for. Suddenly, I stumbled across a very familiar looking face among many others. It was Lizzie, surrounded by a bunch of people I didn't know. She was in a wedding dress, and the men around her were dressed in morning coats and suits. She saw me looking at her with a funny look on my face, and she came running out.

Her: "Anthony! Guess what?"
Me: "No, don't tell me."
Her: "Yes!" And she flashed her wedding band at me, with her engagement ring right behind it.
Me: "You're married. Why are you getting married?"
Her: "Duh! You get married after you've been engaged!"
Me: "I never knew you were engaged! How did this little fact escape the subject of conversation?"
Her: "Oh, you knew."
Me: "No, really, I didn't."
Her: "Sure you did!"
Me: "Lizzie, I would not be reacting like this if I had known you were engaged."
Her: "Well, it doesn't matter. Come celebrate with us!"

And at this point I looked at the crowd. All the men present were aged 45 and over. I looked carefully for the groom. Shocked, I did a double-take, and then for safety reasons, I looked over them all very thoroughly again. Her husband was a gray-haired man, rather on the portly side. You could tell he was very well off by the way that he carried himself.

Me: "Lizzie, how old is your husband?"
Her: "What difference does that make?"
Me: "He's what, 50?"
Her: "Close. He's a bit older."
Me: "Why are you marrying him?"
Her: "Why would anyone marry anyone else?"
I gave her a look.
Her: "Yeah, he is well off, but that's not the main reason!"

I forget what I said at this point, but it was along the lines of the fact that I couldn't celebrate with her, because something about the whole thing seemed really wierd. Of course, Lizzie did not like that answer, and she went away mad at me. I felt awful for saying whatever it was I said and for making her mad, but I couldn't go against my feelings in this matter.

Anyway, she went inside one of the restaraunts in this mall, followed by her entourage. I followed her at a distance. There were no Christendom people at all, nor was her family there. The entire crowd consisted of people about the age of the groomsmen. Some were married, some weren't. It looked like all the attendees were all on the guy's side.

I began to feel extremely uneasy about the whole thing. Right about then, I woke up...

The mountain

2006-07-20T08:38:00.000-04:00

I was in a place that I'd seen before in a previous dream. I don't remember what happened in the previous dream, but I remember that I had gotten a good idea of the way the place was laid out. As best as I can figure, I was driving a lot in my last dream about this place.

If I had the skills, I would draw you a map of this place. Before anyone asks, yes, I remember it, and, no, I'm not making it up.

In this dream, I was driving my dad's old Ford Bronco around (the same one I wreaked the second time I drove it). I was driving it along the road towards a large mountain.

The road I was on wound around through trees and smaller hills, but you could see this mountain over it. This one mountain was part of a mountain range. The road was positioned in such a way that from the angle that I was coming at, you couldn't really see the mountain range, you only saw what you thought was one huge mountain.

Well, as I got nearer, and the road continued to wind, the other mountains in the range became much more apparent. The roads on the mountain itself did not rest immediately on the mountain, either. They were all supported by large posts, which then rested on the mountain. (Think of a traffic interchange between two major highways. You know those bridges that go over the highways that allow travelers to get from one highway to another? Think of supports like that.)

I was going on a tour of the inside of the mountain. When I drove inside, I met with a number of people there all going on this same tour. Since this mountain was so large, the idea was the everyone would drive around in their vehicles and tune their radios to an AM frequency, so that they could hear the tour announcer. That's exactly what I did. I tuned my radio to the AM frequency, and we followed the tour guide.

There was a lot of what you would expect in a mountain, but there was one thing you would not expect. Inside this mountain was the world's largest natural deep fat frier. You can't really imagine how big this was. This was the bulk of the tour, showing off this deep fat frier.

--"History"--
The mountain was, in fact, completely natural. No man had built it. A mining expedition had discovered it, and, in discovering it, had discovered one of the products of the mountain, namely something you would cook in a deep fat frier: potato chips. As the original mining expedition was going, after digging a tunnel into the mountain, they discovered a natural cavern. This natural cavern led to another room, and this room was filled with new, crispy, golden potato chips. The miners all tried one, and sure enough they were real -- it wasn't a mirage of anything. They continued exploring in the mountain, and they discovered the an immense pool of golden liquid. It was cool, so they went to investigate. They discovered that it was 100% pure, and after monitoring it for some time, discovered what it did. Needless to say, it became a tourist attraction like no one has ever seen before.
--End "History"--

As the tour continued on past this immense lake (you're probably still not imagining a deep fat frier lake big enough), we were shown the products of this mountain. At that moment, the lake was producing some sort of cheesy cracker--along the lines of the Ritz cracker, but cheesy instead of buttery. I was very interested, because I'm a big fan of stuff like this. They were offering samples of what the mountain makes, so I gladly took some. Imagine the best cheesy cracker you've ever had, then think of ways to improve on it. That's how good this was.

I left quite happy and also intrigued as to how this thing came to be. As I drove away, there was a slight rumble. I figured it was the mountain settling, or perhaps beginning to prepare another batch.

As I drove out of the mountain, a separate mountain in the chain suddenly erupted. It was spouting the cheesy goodness that I had just praised. The problem was the this yumminess was wiping out everything in its path, exactly like lava. I watched in horrored fascination as a forest was quickly buried.

My mind quickly flew back to my family living on the other side of the range. I pulled a quick U-turn in the truck and sped out of there as quickly as I could, but unfortunately, it was not quickly enough. The mountain that I had just been in joined in the fray immediately in front of me. I was caught up in the wave of crackers and swept away.

The next thing I knew, I was alone. The eruption had happened, and I was still alive. The truck still ran, but it had sustained some body damage. I got out of the truck and looked around. Trees were snapped in half, forests were partially flattened. I looked where my family's house would have been, and it was gone. There was hardly any sign of life anywhere, aside from a few birds. Since there was nothing left here, I decided to hunt around for other possible survivors.

My house was gone. The good thing was that there were no bodies, so I had hope that they had all gotten away in time. There was no sign of tracks, but then again, should there be? I think not. It would be odd indeed of forests were wiped out and tracks were left...

I continued searched, and I found a refugee hideout in Best Buy. Or what I thought was a hideout. It was actually no hideout. It was business as usual at Best Buy. They were having a clearance sale, and stragglers from the wreck outside were coming inside to spend possibly their last dollar on cool new toys for themselves. Anywhere from video games to laptops to appliances: it was all on sale. I recognized several employees: Big Brad, Zack R., and a few others who I knew in passing. They didn't recognize me off hand. I applied for a job there -- I had to make money to begin rebuilding, right?

I still had my uniform, so I threw it on, and began working. For some reason, there were a lot of customers who all needed help, but aside from a select few, the employees were all too busy chatting with each other to help out any of the customers. This affected me very oddly -- it really disturbed me that these people were spending their last bit of money on useless technology that would not help them in rebuilding, which they couldn't even use anyway, because of the lack of electricity. I wept for them inside, but I did nothing to stop them, because this is what they wanted to do.

The dream finished up with me being done with closing the store down after a short day, getting back out to my truck, and seeing a very sorrowful sight. All the people who had just made these purchases were barely alive enough to use them. They did not have money for the necessities of life, and were starving. It was very apocalyptic...

Dad

2006-07-16T08:54:00.000-04:00

I got word that Dad was back home. Shocked, I flew home, and sure enough he was. He was sitting at the dining room table, looking more-or-less normal as anything. He was a lot bigger than the last time I saw him, and a lot stronger. He had more energy, and he breathed a lot easier. I did do a double-take when I saw him though, but it wasn't because of all that.

He had hair. His receding hairline was still present, but he had enough hair to do a flat-top. Keep in mind that, aside from photographs, Dad with hair is something I have never seen before.

His congestive heart failure was completely gone. His need for medication was out the window. He did have to use a cane, and that was simply because he had been dead long enough that he was still stiff, but even that was going away.

The next thing I remember, Dad and I were walking towards Town East Mall (a local shopping mall in Mesquite). I had two obvious questions welling up inside of me, but, out of respect, and because I didn't want to sound like some sort of freak-o medium, I held off. When I couldn't take it anymore, I asked the first one.

I asked him if he could tell me anything from beyond the grave. What was death like? Had he gone to heaven? If so, why did he come back (not to sound cruel, but I imagine that heaven is a lot better than earth)? What was judgment like?

--SIDE NOTE--
One thing that I remember from all the way back when I was really young: I've always been afraid of Dad. He was the punisher of the family, the really strict one. Up until I went to college, I was always afraid of him, and even when I came back from college, he had a very commanding presence, one that I always feared.

In retrospect, up until I went to college, I never really knew how much Dad loved me, or how much I returned that love. Nothing changed before I went to college, during my time at Christendom, nor post-graduation. He was always Dad. I just began to take notice of the fact that Dad was strict because he loved me, instead of being strict just for the sake of it.
--END SIDE NOTE--

He looked at me with his normal look. In my youth, I would have been scared that I had said something wrong. Now I didn't see anything like that. He told me very plainly that he will not reveal to me what is not my place to know. When I die is when I will find out what death is like, what judgment is like, and then where I will go.

He also told me that I'm not doing what I need to do. What it is I need to do, he didn't say.

The third thing he told me was a bit of a kicker: Stop drinking soda. It'll kill you.

I laughed out loud at the third one. Although I didn't doubt it, I was a bit taken aback by the fact that it was one of the things that he had to tell me.

My second question was this: How is it that he came back to life and got out of his casket? "Well, son, you see, there are motion sensors and life sensors within any coffin. Mine was equipped with them as well. As soon as I started moving, the alert was sent out, and the casket was brought back up in less time than I had to realize my situation and start panicking." I was surprised by this answer, because I didn't see any sensors, or anything else that could do such a job, and I did get a decently good look at the casket. I was about to ask him to get into the scientific details of how they could place a sensor inside a coffin like that, and then get it to transmit a signal through that much earth, but then I woke up.

I'm such a geek, even in my dreams...

"Superhero" is a career option...

2006-07-04T09:49:00.000-04:00

...or at least, that's what my subconscious thinks. This was a very odd dream, and it's doesn't make sense, but part of it was cool, anyway...

The first part: I was at Mass (Mass of Paul VI), sitting front and center with a large group of people. The priest announced the Kiss of Peace, and while everyone else in the church shook hands and made a big commotion, the large group of us did it the more-or-less traditional way: my hands went to the shoulders of the person next to me, his hands went under my elbows, we bowed towards each other. "Pax tecum. Et cum spiritu tuo." After doing that to the person on both the left and the right, we faced front again. Quick, clean, smooth, done. We weren't diving over pews to shake hands with people, unlike the rest of the people in the church.

The next thing that I recall, this same group I was with at Mass were all in a very large field. The part we were in was wide open. I looked around, and some of us were dressed oddly. Very oddly. Some people had tights, some people had masks, some people had capes, etc. Others, including me, were dressed in their normal attire to blend in.

Now, I don't know how this part follows. If you hadn't noticed, we were all superheroes. I don't know if our powers came from the Mass (which is a really cool thought), or if because we had our powers, we had to show the common folk how to behave at Mass. Anyway...

In any case, we were all gathered to have a showdown with the local bad guy. It was obvious that very few of us had any idea how best to use our powers. Some were showing off, some were unsure of themselves, few were acting normal.

The local bad guy was on top of a hill. He had done something which had made him the bad guy. For all I know, he could have leveled a city, or he might have simply bought an SUV and the green peace people called him a murderer. In any case, he challenged us.

"Since you are all obviously very green with your powers, I'll give you a fighting chance. I'll give you 15 seconds. You have until then to hide wherever you can. If I find and catch you -- and I'll find and catch every single one of you -- you're out of commission. Agreed?" Somehow or another, we got the idea that we wouldn't want to go up against him in a full-scale assault, so we all agreed.

(Yes, it was superhero hide-and-seek.)
(I can hear you laughing. Shut up.)

We agreed by splitting up in every possible direction. Some people went into the trees, some turned invisible, some burrowed underground. I looked at the LBG. He wasn't looking away. He was watching us as we all hid. Well, he is the local bad guy...

I took off running. I sped up as fast as I could go (which is a lot faster than I can run in real life -- even faster than TJ), and then thought that it would be better if he could see where I was going, so I took off flying. I looked down to see where everyone was going. I put my hands out under me to give fives as I passed by. Everyone dodged, thinking I was going to hit them. Elizabeth McG. was up ahead. She turned around and held her hand out. I dipped low enough and gave her five as I zipped by.

At this point, I really took off. I didn't want LBG to watch me too easily. My plan was to get past a hill at the ten second mark (which I was in no danger of missing), and then use all my speed to hide in a completely different direction. Genius, huh? Well, just after giving Liz a five and really turning up the juice, I woke up. Mom had walked into the room and reminded me that I had wanted to get up early to get some work done today...

Don't ask...

2006-06-08T09:02:00.000-04:00

Last nights dream wasn't coherent, wasn't based on much ... it was just weird...

From what I remember, I was in a house (or a separate room in a restaurant), and I was with some friends. We were all eating Oriental food. Oddly enough, I was using chopsticks without stumbling all over myself, or anything. For some reason, I was having the hardest time trying to get this food down! It wasn't gross, but everyone else was beating me. I don't remember who was there, but they were looking at me like I was weird, because they were finishing up first. I was about half done with my box of food when they were picking out the last grains of rice -- that's how far behind I was.

Well, we were all together, and I was still hungry, so they all left to check this place out, and I concentrated on just trying to finish all of it. I wasn't getting full, it just seemed like I wasn't able to get much in the chopsticks at all.

Well, as I slowly worked my way through the food, there was long, thin, pink thing, about as wide as one of my fingers. I didn't know what it was. I simply couldn't tell. I poked at it, hoping to discover what kind of creature it was. It suddenly dawned on me where I had seen one of those before: a larger one was inside my own mouth. You got it, a tongue.

I stared in disbelief. I've never had a tongue in any of the Chinese, Japanese, Thai, or any other Oriental food that I've ever had before. I was stunned. What should I do? Should I ignore it, pretend I never saw it, eat around it, and throw it away? But that's wasting food, and I am not known for doing that. Many people would eat it without thinking twice. In fact, I'm sure that in some places, it's a delicacy.

Well then, should I eat it?

Yuck. No way.

But why not? I've eaten practically everything else in my life that's been set before me. I do claim to be entirely not picky--especially since I can't cook, I have no room to complain.

But a tongue? Blah!

Well, I poked at it once more. It was thoroughly cooked and rather soft. I picked it up, and it looked like it had simply been cut up.

After grossing myself out, I decided to not eat it. Very decidedly, I put it into a corner of the box, well away from the rest of the food.

The fried rice was actually quite good. It was easily some of the best that I've ever had. Suddenly I realized that I was almost done with the box. I hurried to try to finish it up, because I wanted to see what was inside this restaurant.

I took a bite, and chewed. It was a different texture and a slightly different taste. It was very soft, but somehow slightly rubbery. What I was tasting was slightly more bland than the fried rice, but it was good in its own way. I froze in horror and looked in the box. No, I hadn't accidentally eaten that piece of tongue. Then what in the world...?

I had to inspect what I had just put in my mouth. There was another piece of the tongue, smaller than the major piece, and I had just eaten it. A wave of revulsion ran through me, and then I checked myself. Why was I disgusted? It wasn't all that bad...

I reconsidered my original idea, and picked up the piece of tongue in the corner. I looked closely at it. I don't know what I expected to see. Maybe a message saying, "Don't eat this"? Whatever it was, all I could see is that it was simply a tongue. I braced myself and ate it.

Not bad. It was as I described before, but without all the fried rice, it was easier to tell what it tasted like by itself. It was chewy on the outside, but rather soft on the inside, not unlike taffy with a cream filled center. However, it was a much softer "chewy" than anything.

I can't even describe the taste. How would you describe the taste of your own tongue? You can't can you? Well, I guess that my dream was telling me that all tongues tasted like my own...

In any event, I finally got done with that. The box was empty. I got up to look around the place, and maybe catch up with my friends. As I walk out of the room, I see the next room has some targets in it. Curious, I walk in.

As soon as I clear the door, a man hands me a pump action shotgun.

{SIDE NOTE}

Of course, you know that I scoured the internet for pictures and names of shotguns. The closest that I could find was the Navy A Remington 870 Wingmaster 12-gauge shotgun. I tried to post a picture of one here, but it wouldn't work for some reason... Anyway, if you're that interested, just search for the name of the gun in quotes: "Navy A Remington 870 Wingmaster 12-gauge shotgun". You'll find the picture, and it should be the first link you get.

{END SIDE NOTE}

I take the gun, and it's surprisingly light. It was almost amazing at how light it was. Well, I had six rounds, so, with much gusto, I strode over to the center of the space where I was supposed to stand, and held the gun up. After firing one round, I realized that this really was as easy as the movies made it look. I tossed the gun from my right hand to my left hand. My left hand grabbed the pump, and I did a one handed pump, and the gun was ready to go again. I tossed the gun up with my left hand, and caught it with my right hand exactly where it was supposed to be, spun 360 on my heel while lowering myself to floor, and fired without aiming. I was just slightly off bulls-eye, but what do you expect for a rookie like me? Well, I continued doing stuff like that and went through five shells quickly. On the sixth one, I decided to break the rules and pretend to be Neo, so I did a one-handed cart-wheel on my right hand, and while I was perfectly upside down, I fired again (left handed) and hit bulls-eye.

Feeling quite proud of myself, I went back to the guy to get another six shells, which he gave me. I looked at my target: it was practically non-existent anymore. At this point, it was obvious that the wall behind it was drywall, because it was missing a huge chuck of it, and white powder was everywhere. As I reloaded the gun, the man motioned to the door, as though telling me to go out and shoot things. I gladly accepted, because I knew that I would have to save innocent lives from an evil terrorist dictator who has set himself up as the ruler of the land.

Six shells wasn't going to get me too far, so I got a couple more...

As I walk out the door, the stereotypical sunglasses go on, and I stand in a menacing pose outside the door. The first door opens, and I do my best to look intimidating.

Airborne drywall powder comes pouring out of the room, and a young man completely covered in it comes out, choking from the sheer volume of dust. I look at him, wondering if it would be my first opponent.

Nope. It's Alex Y. (a fellow Christendom alum, who was from the basement my senior year, and graduated class of '05). He looks at me in sheer disbelief, and says, "What in the world do you think you're doing? You just shot out that wall!"

Not having a good answer for him, I woke up...

"Amusement park" in a building in a city

2006-05-02T23:04:00.000-04:00

I was walking down the street of a city. This city was laid out rather like Washington, D.C., but there were a lot more high-rises there. It was more like walking down the streets of NYC or downtown Dallas. The one major difference was that the buildings were all painted and colorful.

Another difference: all these high-rises were connected to each other several stories up. You could go into one building, go up to the 10th floor (that number sounds good), and you could then walk from building to building. This was laid out to replicate the sidewalks and crosswalks in this city.

If you want to see a very close spot on the map, the dream was partially inspired by this point: Go to http://maps.google.com and search for "Constitution Ave NW & 6th St NW, Washington, DC 20004". The only major difference is that right were Constitution meets Pennsylvania directly east from that point, picture a huge, steep hill right there, and the aforementioned connected high-rises all over the place.

Anyway, I was walking with a group of about eight other guys. We were all dressed in slacks, shirts and ties, and we were just walking down the street. Oddly enough, I only knew one guy in the group: Dominic C., from Texas. There were a couple Christendom guys in the group, but I only know them by sight, and not by name.

We were walking mostly together, east-bound along this road, through crowds of men and women dressed in suits and smart dresses (respectively). I suddenly realized that not everyone in this group was actually walking. Some of these people had roller shoes. You know what I mean -- the ones with the wheel in the heel. But I don't mean sneakers. I mean normal dress shoes. Anywhere from $1000's snake-skinned shoes to the shiny military style to the $19.99 Wal-Mart specials. It was very interesting seeing these business people just scooting along on their heels.

Up ahead, there was a small group of men supporting a much older man. He looked to be in his sixties, and the men supporting him were in their thirties to forties. It was obvious that he had never scooted like this before. He seemed to be getting the hang of it, but just like everyone else who has never skated before, he was grabbing onto them and other things for support. He did not have roller shoes. He had gotten roller skates to get used to the feeling first. It looked like he had gotten the cheapest kind on the market, too. They were pink, and had little flowers all over them -- obviously, a little girl's skate. But instead of having the normal rollerskate look, the axles were built into the sole of the shoe, putting the four wheels on the side of the shoe, instead of underneath them. The entire thing was plastic, so it was definitely not a quality ride...

As we continued walking, we approached this very large hill. The sidewalks on this hill were absolutely covered with these skaters. In fact, it seems that at the top of the hill, they disregarded the fact that they were professional men and women. They hopped onto their wheels at the top of the hill, and zoomed in and out of all the people who were just walking. They even had assistance in getting that extra boost of speed at the top of the hill. They would all help each other out by providing a shove to the person up on the top to help them get going as fast as they could. There was quite a line for it, too. I'm not sure if there was a designated pusher, or if the people in the line would just push the man or woman in front of them, and then be pushed in turn by the person behind them.

In any event, anyone and everyone who had wheels was being pushed. This included an old man in a wheelchair. He was minding his own business, when all of a sudden, someone behind him gave him a huge shove and sent him tearing down the hill. In a fright, he doubled over in his seat and covered up his head. I saw it all, and hurried to get to the old man. I stopped directly in his path, and slowed his wheelchair down to a stop. I asked him if he was all right, but he didn't move. He finally uncurled, and started slowly wheeling himself away. I imagined that he was too shocked to speak, and I just let him go. As he uncurled himself a got a look at him: if you've been to Old St. Mary's, he was the bald old African American man who sits in the back of the church. He is usually dressed in brown, and has a brown backpack with him. He also wears a white air filter face mask.

In any case, the guys and I turned north. We headed along this road towards our destination. You recall the title of this post? Well, there were three Six Flags in the city, they were all within a few blocks of each other along this road, and they were all contained within their individual skyscrapers. We were headed to a place called "Six Flags: Enigma", the headquarters of all Six Flags.

We arrived there and went inside. But we had entered the wrong Six Flags. No problem -- they had a subway system as well that connected the buildings, so they put us in a car and shot us towards Six Flags: Enigma. When we arrives, we saw that the employees were all dressed in lab coats, but they greeted us like any ordinary Six Flags employees. As we walked through the first set of doors, they warned us that weird things would happen inside.

And was it ever true! We all started slowly changing shape into animals -- de-evolving if you will. One of us turned into a giant rat. Another changed into a wolf. I turned into a Tyrannosaurus Rex. We were all still perfectly rational, and we all recognized each other. It was as though this is what we had always been.

As we left, we walked outside and saw that we weren't the only ones to have visited this place. There were a lot of other animals walking around outside, mingling and interacting with everyone else. The rat and I gave each other looks of approval, and went out to join the crowd.

At the Opera

2006-04-25T12:56:00.000-04:00

Last night, I dreamed that I attended an open-casting call for an opera. Having never sung in an opera before, I was quite nervous.

I got there, and there was a small group of people present. There was a woman and a man who seemed to be in charge, because they were doing all the talking, so I just sat and listened to them. They soon started passing out scripts. I opened it, and it was an opera that I had never seen before (no big surprise there). I tried to figure out the part in my head, but it was all hand-written and there were four flats. It would take me a few minutes to figure out the key, and from then, I had to figure out the rest of it.

Now, I know that there are some of you reading this who will know automatically what key four flats is in. I can usually figure it out (A-flat?), but I don't know it off the top of my head...

In any event, the opera had an interesting plot to it. As I remember, it was divided up into five scenes, but I don't remember for sure about all of them. The main part of the opera was that it was about a woman who was very close to her sixties. Her eldest was a son about close to forty years old, and her youngest was a son who was about twenty-five. The name of the youngest was Marius -- sound familiar?

The woman missed having kids around. Most of her children were married, so she had grandchildren, but she wanted another of her own. The opera was based on her struggle between being content with what she had (a number of well-brought-up sons and daughters and their grandchildren), or attempting to get another child of her own, whether through natural means or adoption. I never actually figured out her motives, whether she feels that the number she provided to the world was insignificant or insufficient, or whether she was lonely without little kids around, but in any case, that was the opera.

I got the role of Marius. Marius was one of the bigger characters in the opera, not as big as his mother, but considering that he had older brothers and sisters, and the father was also involved. In it, Marius was doing his best to convince his mother that she was blessed to have so many children and grandchildren, and that she needed to take care of herself and her husband, and not try to get more children. The rest of the family was surprised at her desire, as well, and expressed similar concerns.

I was a bit weirded out by the content of the opera, as you can imagine, but at the same time, I was really fascinated that an opera was being performed that was saying good things about having big families, instead of promoting the one-and-a-half children families as being ideal.

At the same time, the director was making the poor mother be portrayed as being a bit on the crazy side. Why? I have no idea...

Anyway...

After spending a few minutes flipping through the opera, I wasn't too scared of the role, so I asked them what I needed to do. They asked me if I had my tuxedo. Sure enough, I did. I ran into a back room, changed into it, and came out. They gave me a once-over, and said that I looked all right. By this point, everyone else had changed into their tuxedos and evening gowns, respectively. Almost everyone else had tuxes with tails and white gloves, so I was a bit ... underdressed. Then I remembered I had white gloves, so I whipped them out. In any event, I passed inspection, and we sat down again.

They started giving instructions: "When the crowds get here, they'll want to see a good show, so act the way you learned to, ..." etc. I raised my hand.

"Excuse me, um, crowds?"

"Yes. We're performing this tonight," said the lady.

My eyes bugged out.

"PERFORMING? Um, wait, wait, wait... I'm here for an audition, not for a performance."

"Yeah, I figured as much. That's the same reason I came, too," she replied rather nonchalantly.

My thoughts jumped ahead to the performance. Based on what they were describing, it would be a full house. We would have the sheet music in front of us, so that was a good thing. The performance would be done with those in the scene standing in a row, more like a singing concert than an opera. Everyone else had an operatically trained voice. Not me. I had no vocal training at all, so I would be the odd man out.

I pointed this fact out to the lady, and she just shrugged. I asked about practice, because I'd never seen the music before. She didn't pay attention. I took the music to the back and began to figure it out. After a few minutes, I was switching keys like nobody's business, and, since I do not have perfect pitch, I was rather stuck with trying to figure out the key and praying that I was close...

It suddenly hit me that I had to use the restroom...

And that's how I woke up...

I tried to finish the dream, but I couldn't, so I just got up instead...

Workin' in D.C.

2006-04-23T17:57:00.000-04:00

Last night, I dreamed that I had gone to work in D.C. I don't remember what my job was, or where it was, but I was going to it. As I recall, I was leaving work for the day, and who should I see but Paul P. As usual, he was dressed to impress with his feathered hat, his tweed suit, and his overcoat. I went up to him and asked him where he worked. He told me, and I realized that where he worked wasn't too far away from where I worked. I offered to share a ride with him in, because he was driving his truck in every day from Front Royal, and I was driving the Acura. He agreed, and we parted ways.

There was something else cool about this dream, but I really don't remember...

Bits and pieces of a funpark dream

2006-04-21T12:16:00.000-04:00

I had this very odd dream. I don't remember all of it, but it went something along these lines...

I was a Russian intern living in a well-furnished attic of someone's house. This someone had a daughter who I thought was pretty, and was kind of interested in. The one scene that I distinctly remember from that part of the dream is that we were both upstairs watching television -- a sitcom, if I recall, but not a regular sitcom: this one had an announcer.

As a Russian intern, I was watching me (the real me, not a Russian intern) on TV.

I switches roles. I became the "real me" that was on television. I remember going to a theme park, like King's Dominion or Six Flags. After having this dream, I remember dreaming about this place before.

The last time I dreamed about it, I was the only guest left in the amusement park. The employees were trying to shut everything down, but they were trying to cater to me as well. The ride that pops into my head is the swinging pirate ship. The employees were cleaning the deck and getting it all locked up when I suddenly walked up, just to see what they were doing. They asked me if I wanted to ride it. I saw they were cleaning it and shutting it down, so I said, "No, that's ok." But they began powering it back up and unlocking everything, insisting that I ride it: "Please, ride it! You'll love it!" I said, "I know. I've ridden it before. Besides, you guys are shutting down for the evening. I only came over here to see what was going on." They continued getting everything powered up, and continued pressuring me, "You gotta ride it. Please! You'll love it!" I declined again and turned to leave, and right then, I woke up.

In this dream, Alex S. and I were on our way to the park. Alex, being the sensible one, looked at his watch.

"Geez, Anthony! They'll close in an hour! We probably shouldn't go."

I insisted that I was going to go, whether he did or not. He thought twice about it, and said that he wasn't going. He's want to ride a lot of the rides, and one hour wasn't enough time. It made sense, but I still wanted to go. I dropped him off at his home (which oddly looked like the attic), and continued on to the park.

David H. and Goeff T. were in line to get into the park. I joined the line, and then noticed that I was in the wrong line...

I got out of line, and went to a different line, the one marked entrance. The entrance line crossed over the other line that I had been a part of, forming a cross intersection. The entrance line had one other person in it, David. Geoff had already gone through the entrance and was in the park. (David had been in the park most of the day, but he had left for a while and had just come back.) David turned to me and said that the entrance to the park was his favorite part. I looked at him funny, and understandably so. He explained that the entrance to the park was the qualifying round. If you could make it through the entrance "test", you were admitted into the park. Those who didn't make it through the test had to stand in the other line.

I looked at the lines. On the other side of the entrance gates was a series of slides. Most of them were relatively steep. In order to make it in, you had to climb up the slides. This would put you a good 100 feet above where the entrance level was.

Dying of curiosity, I looked at the other line. The other line also had a series of slides, but these slides went down. Why wouldn't you want to take these slides? It would be easier! The problem was that these slides took you away from the park, and spilled you onto the highway. You can imagine what that was like. There were a lot of people in that line...

I went into the entrance, wondering if I should even bother or just turn around and leave. I looked at the series of slides, and I saw Geoff scrambling up one of them like there was nothing easier in the world. David, also, had run away and was going up a different slide. As I looked closely, these slides were very polished, and very slick. If you slipped, you'd go all the way down to the bottom...

The thought, "GIVE UP!" kept running though my head...

The sitcom voices droned on, and I got a third-person view of me as the Russian intern watching me faced with this small dilemma. The intern turned to the girl he was sitting with, and asked her what she thought would happen. She looked a him, and said that there was only one way to find out. They both turned back to the television...

But in that second of distraction, they missed it. I was already in the park. Geoff and David had run far ahead and were in their respective rides. As I passed by the pirate ship again, the same guys were there, still asking me to ride it.

Outside the television, once again I assumed the role of the Russian intern, and I got up to leave. Alex suddenly poked his head into the room and asked if there was anything anyone needed, because he was going to the store. No wonder the attic looked familiar...

I remember this dream continuing for a while, but I don't remember what else was said or done. All I really remember was that the girl and I got into a discussion over a current event or something...

Freaky dreams

2006-03-31T03:56:00.000-05:00

I've been having this weird semi-recurring dream lately. It's even kind of a nightmare...

I went back to Christendom, as is my usual weekend fare. But the campus has changed. The only thing consistent in the dreams that has changed is that the layout of the campus has changed, and gotten much more expansive with more trees, more hills, more valleys, and bigger buildings.

The last time I had this dream, the weather was beautiful. The hills were so radiantly green, and the sky was as blue as blue could be, with a couple pure white clouds in the sky. Such a day couldn't be enjoyed by oneself, so I went around looking for people. No one was around. None of the guys were in their dorms, and none of the girls seemed to be there. Any. Not even people that I didn't know. The place was there, people's stuff was there -- but there was not a soul on campus. It looked like they were all there, somewhere, but I couldn't figure out where. It looked like all the cars and all the vans were there. Where could they be?

Had the rapture happened?

I don't know. I woke up shortly after giving up the search and lying down on a huge green hill to wait for them to show up...

This time, I started off by going to the gym. The gym was much nicer than the current one. It had three levels, an indoor swimming pool, indoor tennis courts, racquetball courts, indoor basketball courts, enormous weight room, a track, showers, saunas--you name it, the gym had it. A young man was giving me a tour, saying (essentially), "Look at how great we are." He was about 18, Mexican, and had a fluffy, white, stereotypical-gym towel draped over his shoulder. Mike P. went jogging by as we were exploring the lower level. We went into the racquetball courts, and he showed me what they could be used for: in one, there was a group therapy session. In another, Dr. Poterack was conducting Madrigals. In another, a group of students (weird looking students -- weird: think of me, and you'll have an idea of what they look like) were in there smoking all sorts of stuff, from cigarettes to weed to pot. As he saw people, he would go up to them, say their name Italian style ("TONYYYYY!!" for instance), and they'd exchange the brief guy hug (right handshake, bringing the right shoulder in to the chest of the other, pat the other guy on the back twice), and then they'd talk for a minute, he'd introduce me, and then they'd say farewell, and we'd keep going. Tyler McA. was there, bigger then ever, still pumping iron.

Mary W. was there -- yes, the same one that's in CA. What was she doing back? I don't know, but it was very good to see her. Since I haven't seen her since graduation, I wanted to chat with her and figure out how she was doing.

It did not seem weird to me that she was in her interview suit, the black suit with a black, knee-length skirt, and the shirt she always wore with the brooch around the neckpiece. What was it all called? You got me... The shirt wasn't violet, wasn't exactly purple. It seemed a lot redder than violet, and a lot brighter, too. I seem to remember that color quite vividly. The neckpiece looked like an ascot, but I knew it wasn't. It was of the same material, but it looked more like it just came around the front, and was pinned together with the brooch.

In any case, she was singing with the choir as an alto. I could hear a distinct alto line coming from her mouth, and it sounded really good, like I remember. (A bit of context: Based on the way that Mary talks about her singing abilities, she can't sing worth a flip. Maybe I'm just wacko, but I think she has a great voice, and I've heard her sing...)

The song they were singing sounded like, "My Little Buttercup", but instead of such innocent lyrics, the song was called, "Mr. Sedevacantist." But since the title needed to be shortened to fit the melody, the group was singing,
"My Little Sedev-ist,
Sweet little Sedev-ist..."

Ken, and everyone else who considers me a Traddy, eat your heart out...

Mike P. was also singing with them -- even though I just saw him running the opposite direction...

Well, we finished exploring the gym, and I left. I got in my car, and drove to the other side of campus. The weather had now changed, and it was getting really cloudy and windy, as though a big storm was coming. I parked the Acura outside in the parking lot, and I was going to go see the guys. I walked in the direction that the guys dorms were, only they weren't there anymore. It was getting darker, the wind started blowing harder, and I suddenly realized that I was walking into a bit of a forest. The trees were mostly branches, and there were vines all over the place. I circled through the forest, hoping to maybe find where the dorms were, but I was only making a large loop back to the car. I noticed a run-down building in the distance, so I went to investigate. As I approached, I heard familiar voices inside, and suddenly they started singing,
"My Little Sedev-ist,
Sweet little Sedev-ist..."

I walked inside. Emma F. was one of three sopranos. There were no altos -- Mary hadn't shown up yet. There were two tenors, Mike P. and Dr. Davidson. There were no basses. The freakiest thing about this: I heard basses. TRUE basses. I opened the door expecting to see Julian A. or John E., but there neither. I looked at Dr. Poterack, assuming that he had sung the bass line, but he somehow knew what I was thinking and shook his head, smiling in his mysterious/mischievous/impish way...

As I went to greet them, they all huddled together in a football huddle. I looked quizzically at them, expecting something, but they stayed there, talking. As I watched, Emma popped her head out, and, in mockery, winked at me. Then, without smiling, laughing or turning red like she does when I wink at her, she ducked back into the huddle. I checked the time, and saw that it was not getting any earlier, and figured I should leave.

Just then, the choir assumed their places, and began the same song again. Mary burst through the door, as though she had just run from the gym in her nice clothes, already singing the alto line.

As I left, I heard the bass line, in particular, really loud, in perfect balance with everything. The invisible true bass was going lower than any bass I've ever heard. It sounded good, but almost mechanical. It went all the way down to the C below the bass clef, and kept going, at least down to the A -- at least. (My lowest note on a really good day is the E-b -- F on a normal day.)

I headed back to my car. I wasn't going to have any luck finding the guy's dorms. As I walked back to the parking lot, I noticed that it, too, had become overrun with vines. That, and my Acura wasn't there anymore. "What if" thoughts filled my head, and I wondered to myself, "What if it got stolen? What if it got blown away? After all, the wind is blowing really hard now..." I looked around, and saw an abandoned old-fashioned burger stand/joint, also covered in vines. The Acura was nose-first into it. The driver's side door glass had been punched through twice -- the glass was still up, but you could see where the hand went through it. The person who did this tried to open the door like you would in a Lamborghini, and, in the process, had torn the door off it's hinges, and reattached it to the top of the car. I mean "reattached" in the loose sense. They had bent the top of the door, so that it would cling to the top part of the door frame, but upside down. They had also found my toolbox and stolen my radio. The car was still running, the lights were on, and the toolkit was left out, as though in mockery.

As I was standing there, dumbfounded, shocked that my radio had been stolen again, I woke up, realized it was a dream, and fell back asleep.

At this point, I realized that I was hearing my driving music playing, but it was coming from inside my car. I looked carefully at the car, and the interior looked like a hybrid between the Sentra and the Acura. There was indeed a hole where my radio was, but my speakers were still cranking out the tunes. I looked into the hole, and saw what appeared to be a 5.25" disk drive in there, but it was an OLD 5.25" drive. It looked oddly reminiscent of a Mac. I couldn't tell if this new thing had replaced my radio, or not.

I checked my pocket. I still had my keys. The car must have been hot-wired. I didn't check to see if it had. I didn't really want to.

In frustration, I walked away from the car. I wasn't going to abandon it there, I just needed a minute. After all, my alma mater was not being taken care of, my car had been ravaged, my friends could not be found (and when I did find them, they kept singing the same song -- I get the feeling it was being directed at me), and I was --well, generally lost, to be honest. I had no idea where I was. I was at Christendom, but the Christendom I knew didn't have the room to expand like this, so the chances of it being in the same place were slim to none.

I walked back to my car, still buried pathetically into the side of the stand, when I started waking up. I felt reality start to come into focus. The car disappeared, as did my surroundings. I was laying flat on my back, and having a hard time breathing (I've been having asthma problems all day). I checked the time: 03:45. Since I wasn't going back to sleep any time soon, and since I thought that you are all dying to know what else runs through the mind of this weirdo, I thought that I'd post this... It's now 05:31, and I'm about to hit the hay again.

Superman Dream

2006-03-14T07:30:00.000-05:00

I was reading the Death and Life of Superman last night before I went to bed. The comic books always made my imagination run wild, and the novel is doing the same...

Guess who I was?

If you said Superman, you're wrong...

If you said Doomsday, you're wrong...

"But, Anthony, you said it was a Superman dream. What gives?"

It was loosely based on the Sueprman novel. I don't remember all the details of the dream, but to put it simply, I was the captain of a Federation Starship (Star Trek). My away crew and I beamed down to earth to discover what the incredible source of energy was that was sending shockwaves into space. Imagine our surprise when we saw Doomsday battling Superman. We discovered them early on in the fight, when both of them had landed several blows on each other, but Doomsday still had his entire mask on, and one arm bound behind his back.

{SIDE NOTE} For those of you sho do not know what Doomsday looks like, here are some pictures...

The first one has Doomsday completely wrapped up, before he began his swath across the planet's surface. The second one is late in his fight with Superman. The third is a picture that is of him completely unbound, just do you can get an idea of about how big he is. He's physically bigger than Superman. If Superman is 6'5", then Doomsday is almost 8', and proportionally that much bigger...

{END SIDE NOTE}

At this point, some of Doomsday's clothes and the cables binding him have been torn off, but he still has the mask.

Now I'm a smart Starship captain. I've read the books. I know how it ends. I know that Metropolis really needs Superman, and that the city will go to pot without him. My first reaction is to shoot Doomsday. Not the best idea, because I might shoot Superman. I know what I'll do! I'll beam him up to a holding cell! That'll work! With all of my Federation technology, I'm sure I can keep him contained.

"Lock on to the figure of Doomsday, and beam him right into a maximum holding cell!"

"Are you sure, Captain? Look at what he's doing to Superman!"

"Of course, I'm sure, you idiot! Beam him up!"

"Give us a couple minutes to configure the holding cell, the force fields, and the transporter. We're not used to holding a being of that size and power."

Sure enough, a couple minutes later, after Doomsday has knocked out Superman for the first time, he's transported up to the ship. Hooray for us, and Federation technology!

"CAPTAIN! GET UP HERE NOW!"

Uh-oh...

We transport back to the ship. Just as my crew had warned me, we weren't used to holding something that big. Sedatives just don't work on a big guy like that either. The entire security team was scrambling, armed to the teeth, to take him out. But I don't think that even the Klingons could have done much to him. (Take any other war race you can think of, the Hunters from the Delta Quadrant, the Jem'Hadar from the Gamma Quadrant. Neither would stand a chance...)

In a few seconds, Doomsday had punched his way out of the maximum confinement cell, and was rampaging through my ship. He tore down every force field that stood in his way, and the phaster blasts were only helping him to get free. If Data and Spock had been there, I'm sure that they would have laughed at the stupidity of their captain...

(At this point, the dream stops making sense. I'll explain why in a minute.)

As Doomsday continued his rampage, I got a brilliant idea: Let's give him a lethal dose of something! Once again, hooray for Federation technology. I filled a large syringe up with whatever drug it was, put a dual needle end on it, and hid near the closest exit that would be logical for Doomsday to take. As he came walking up, I popped out of hiding, ran forward, plunged the thing in his chest, hit the injector end to force the contents into him, and ran away as fast as I could. He just stood there watching me the whole time. He continued walking forward with this thing in his chest when he suddenly faltered. He grabbed the syringe, and yanked it out of his chest, but it was too late. It was empty. He fell to the floor, and didn't move again.

I woke up shortly after this lame ending...

Here's why it didn't make sense. First of all, Doomsday's senses and reflexes are much higher than any normal human being. He would have seen me coming, and crushed me. If he didn't, as soon as I made a gesture to hit him with the syringe, he would have crushed me there. If he was really curious, and allowed me to stab him with the syringe, the needle and the syringe would have broken. His body was too tough for any dinky syringe. Supposing that it did pierce his skin and even get all the way inside, it would have hurt, and he would have crushed me there. Finally, even if I had managed to get the entire contents into him, he would have been easily able to catch up with me. I couldn't outrun him.

Anyway... I was amused by this dream, even if you weren't...

Yet Another Dream...

2006-03-13T08:47:00.000-05:00

I had a short weird dream last night. I dreamt that I was in a concentration camp, but it was unlike any concentration camp. In this camp, you could do whatever you wanted to do, go wherever you wanted to go, say whatever you wanted to say -- you had full use of your free will. The thing is, everything was monitored. The soldiers who were the keepers of the camp had somehow tapped into our minds, and they were monitoring everything.

There were a lot of people there (Guess who? Christendomites, of course!). We were all living under the same set of rules. There was one very odd rule that we all had to live by: no action or thought could be incomplete. So, for instance, if I planned to go hiking, and I actually started to go hiking, I couldn't stop until I had arrived at my destination. I could take breaks, and if emergencies came up, I could take care of them (emergencies, i.e., nature called, a disaster struck, take your pick), but the action had to be completed.

I could live with anyone, stay anywhere, eat anything, say anything, even something that would be considered treasonous to the regime -- like I said, complete freedom.

Except to stop myself once I started going...

And that's how I died. It was a criminal offense to have an incomplete thought. And everyone knows that most of my thoughts are incomplete. I survived only a few minutes. I was quickly hunted down, and rounded up for execution.

I don't know how I died, or whether I actually did die. Whatever it was, it was weird...

I wonder if Collateral Damage and/or Taco Bell had anything to do with this dream...

My po' widdle memowy...

2006-02-20T23:38:00.000-05:00

I had such an awesome dream last night. I wanted to put it up here, but I just now remembered that I had meant to do so earlier, and I can't remember anything about it. Drat!!!

Sorry, I have nothing to amuse you with now...

Well, maybe I can come up with something, if I think really hard...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....... {POP!}

Shoot. My slippery mind has popped out. Gotta go fetch it.

.....................

.....................

Have you ever tried to pick up a wet watermelon seed off the floor? It's nearly impossible.

.....................

.....................

That's what this is like. Except my mind is smaller than a watermelon seed, and a whole lot more slippery...

Fr. O'Keilty

2006-02-08T08:18:00.000-05:00

I had the awesome-est dream last night. I dreamt that I was at Christendom, talking with Fr. O'Keilty. He started telling me one of his life stories, and as he told it, my surroundings changed to reflect everything that he was saying. He told the story so vividly that I was an observer of the events as they happened.

There was also a new priest at Christendom. He was a larger priest with red hair, and a bushy red beard. The color was not unlike Kelly P., but lighter and brighter, like the McG. twins. Remember Brendan's beard? That color, but all over. He was Irish as Irish can be. I can't recall his name in my dream, but I know a priest who kind of looks like this: Fr. Dennis Smith. This priest was not Fr. Smith, but for the sake of the story, I'll give him that name.

Anyway, like I said before, I was talking with Father O'Keilty, and the new priest joined our conversation. Fr. O'Keilty and Fr. Smith, both being Irish, had a jolly good time reminiscing about the old days. Apparently these two priests knew each other from way back when. I asked them how they first met each other. Fr. O'Keilty's eyes lit up, and he looked off into the distance. Fr. Smith told me under his breath that Fr. O'K told the story much better than he did, and we both turned towards Father O'K.

Suddenly, I was no longer at Christendom. I was a silent observer. I was in the middle of a jungle, and it was night-time. Machine gun fire could be heard everywhere, and flashes lit up the area. I looked around to see where I was and whether I was in danger. I was in no danger: I didn't even exist, except metaphysically. I could see and interact with everything, but nothing could see me or hear me, but they could become aware of my presence if I had desired to make it known.

I looked around to see if there was anyone around me. As I scanned the brush, I saw a thin barrel and a pair of eyes peeping out. I knew the eyes, but I wanted to make sure. As I approached closer, I saw what looked like a younger Fr. O'Keilty in marine BDU's holding a sniper rifle. He wasn't firing at anyone, but he was ready to, when it came time. A few solo soldiers came out of nowhere a few paces ahead, but they did not see Father, and ran right on past. As they disappeared, I caught a glimpse of the insignia on one of them: they were Nazis.

I was seeing WWII.

It was clear that Father was, indeed, a priest, but the situation called for the chaplain to take up arms. There was no one around him, and he was in German territory.

I looked around, knowing that Father had no one watching his back. To Father's left, just outside of his line of vision, I saw a Nazi setting up a heavy weapon, along the lines of a chain gun. His partner carried the ammo. They were silently setting up this gun, and it was obvious that they had seen Father.

I didn't have time to act, and even if I did, I don't know what I could have done. I got in the line of fire, knowing full well that my metaphysical presence would not stop a bullet, especially of that caliber. The heavy weapon mowed down Father's section of the brush. I turned, knowing that I would see what I did not want to see.

But Fr. O'Keilty surprised me yet again. Some force stopped the bullets from hitting him, and as flattering as it would be to think that that force was actually my presence, I seriously doubt it. Instead, I credit it to Father's Guardian Angel.

The Germans began to quickly pack up their weapon, believing Father to be dead. Suddenly, a bright flash exploded somewhere behind the brush, exposing the standing silhouette of Fr. O'Keilty. He just stood there, knowing that these two Germans had seen him. Sure enough, they had, and they drew their pistols.

I looked back at Fr. O'Keilty, who stood straight, strong and unmoving, as though he was challenging them to fire. Whether he was or not, they did so. After emptying their magazines at him, he was still standing. Fear struck the Germans, and they hurried to reload.

The soldier started screaming something in German, and the leader started yelling "Silencio!" over and over.

Father calmly drew his pistol and fired two shots. The assistant and then the leader went down. The leader of the two Germans lost his helmet in the fall, exposing a shock of red hair. I looked in disbelief, knowing that it was Father Smith. The subordinate Nazi was not dead, but he was in no condition to think about firing. Father had known exactly what he was doing when he fired, and had simply disabled both men. Father walked up to both men, and stood over them. The subordinate clutched his wound, and looked up at Father. As Father stood calmly over them, the leader moved quickly towards Father and made a grab towards his left leg. I thought for sure that he was making one final desparate attempt on Father's life, but he proved me wrong. He was, instead, embracing tightly, and saying the only word I had ever heard him say in the story: "Silencio." He rocked himself back and forth in his pain, but he looked imploringly up at Fr. O'Keilty's eyes, and Father looked down at him and his buddy.

Smith was crying as he was embracing Father's leg, believing that he and his buddy were dying. Father assured them that such was not the case. As tears continued to flow from the face of the red-headed German, he begged for forgiveness, because he saw that he had attempted to kill a man of God (I'm sure that by this point, he knew that Fr. was a Catholic priest). Father, of course, forgave him.

I knew that they were both in good hands.

The scene switched suddenly. The days were lighter, and Father was back in his BDU's holding the same sniper rifle. Instinctively, I knew that we were out of WWII, and were in the Vietnam War. Father advanced in this new jungle slowly, eying everything. Father waved his arm, and out came a familiar heavy-weapons soldier, but this time, with he was allied with Fr. O'Keilty. They paused for a moment, enough time for Smith to thank Fr. O'Keilty for his assistance. Father asked him what he intended to do with his life. Smith said that after this, he would be stuck in Poland until 1996, but as soon as he is able, he would enter a seminary, become a priest, and then find Fr. O'Keilty.

The time zipped back to the present. Fr. Smith had fulfilled his promises: he is now a priest, and has found Fr. O'Keilty. One part that he neglected to mention, but that was clear to me was that he didn't intend to let the simple priest who changed his life get away from him. He intended to serve Fr. O'Keilty as long as he could be, to help in the payment of a debt that could never be repaid.

Absolutely nothing...

2006-01-01T07:26:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to have another good dream, I ate right before going to bed last night. I had a bacon double cheeseburger, large fries, large lemonade, and stuffed jalapeño poppers. Nothing. I dreamed a perfectly normal dream. So normal, in fact, that the strangest part of it was that Mara V. called me to ask for my help. I heard my phone ringing right before my alarm clock went off. I hit snooze, and tried to resume the dream, but nothing happened. I think she needed help with her computer or something...

Drat...

Oh well. Maybe next time...

But it would have been a great way for me to start off the new year...

Another "guy" dream

2005-12-29T19:10:00.000-05:00

This is another post that is not for the faint of heart. Towards the end is when it gets pretty bad, but if you have an active imagination, and you know who the characters are, it may seem very real. Now that you've been warned proceed at your own risk.

Last night and the night before, I had very weird dreams. I can't remember what it was the night before last, but last night was a continuation of a horror dream. Oddly enough, I remember the first one as though I just had it. But it seems more like a movie than a dream. Old Freddy was in it. No, not Freddo. Freddy. Krueger. Old-looking man, shriveled to a crisp, claws that only Wolverine could top -- that guy. No, not the innocent, bearded wonder of Pius Hall. Yes, the dream killer.

Just FYI, if this actually is a movie, then it's movie that I fell asleep in front of and dreamed it while it was happening. But I can't figure out where I would have fallen asleep in front of a movie like this. Maybe you can tell me. But in order to know, you would have to know the dream, wouldn't you?

Anyway, to get this started, I should tell you the first dream, as best as I remember it. A family was in desperate shape. They came to Christendom, asking for students to come and help them. Naturally, me being Mr. Nice Guy (right...), I offered my help, and a few other students came as well.

None of the people had any idea how to decorate a house appropriately for Christmas. We find this out after we've gotten to their house. Desperate shape? Please! But not willing to laugh openly at this family, who apparently believed that this was indeed a dreadful situation, I looked at their house, and got an idea of what needed to be done.

It was an average size, two-story house. The house was already decorated, but poorly, and rather unfestively. There were a few lights on it, and ribbon decorations. I then actually noticed that the lights were all clear, and the ribbon was all black. I have no sense of style, but even I know that solid black ribbons and clear lights don't make for a very festive house. I looked at my fellow volunteers, and we just kind of rolled our eyes. If Niki G. (formerly Niki K.) were here, she could have transformed the place like she did with the gym for Christmas formal my senior year. But she wasn't here, and I was one of the decorators. The house would be a bit more festive than what it was currently, but I couldn't promise much...

We go inside and these people inform us that this project must be finished by nightfall. It absolutely had to be finished then. They didn't explain why, but they acted as though it was a matter of life and death.

The other volunteers and I put together a list of everything that these people needed, and told them to go to the store and pick the stuff up. They took off as fast as they could go, and the volunteers and I got to work stripping the house of all of it's "decorations".

It turns out that the black ribbon was everywhere. It took us hours to unwrap and undecorate the various things. Even though hours passed, the family never showed back up. The sun was setting, and the end of the day was quickly approaching.

It turned out that it was a matter of life and death. Freddy showed up and began freaking us out. Oddly enough, it wasn't in a dream world. After running and screaming for a while, we all caught on to the fact that Freddy was outside his territory and could only scare us, but not kill us.

Now that you get the idea of the first dream, on to the next.

It was a year later. This same family showed up at Christendom again, and made the same request. I knew exactly what was coming up, and I decided to go along anyway. Several students also volunteered their services. There was a much larger group of people going this time. I can only remember one student, Nick O.

For some reason, I'm convinced that sometime on the trip between Christendom and the family's same house, I warned my comrades about the impending doom, and told them the truth about Freddy's limited power.

Once again, the house looked the same as before. Once again, we gave the family the same list of things to buy. I told them to make darn sure they came back, or I would exact the fate that they tried to inflict upon us last time upon them this time. I got in their face about this. The other student's were surprised by my agitation at the family, but I think they understood. The family promised to come back, and sped off.

This time, I wasn't going to waste any time in stripping the house. Instead of carefully unwrapping stuff, I had brought my knife with me this time. I started upstairs in the attic. What came as a mixed surprise to me were the number of bodies just lying there dead. Considering it was Freddy, it didn't surprise me, but considering that he was outside his turf, it did. I didn't understand how that could work, but then I got the hint that things had changed. I knew that I would probably have to at least fight if not kill him.

I placed the bodies elsewhere, to prepare them for appropriate burial. When they had all been cleared out, I went to the window. I noticed that the curtain rod had been wrapped in black ribbon. I looked closely, and it was actually two rods bound together by this black ribbon. The fastest way to get them apart, obviously, was to cut the ribbon. As I looked out the window, I pulled out the knife. Two people who I didn't know approached the house. The knife sliced into the ribbon, between the rods. Freddy zipped on the scene out of nowhere like the Flash, and ran them both through with his claws. My jaw dropped open, as he took off again, leaving them lying on the ground, looking similar to the bodies that I had removed. I looked at what I was doing, and pulled the knife out slightly from the cut I had made. It was coated with blood. But not normal human blood. It was bright red, like strawberry syrup, but clear. But it definitely smelled like blood.

I was a little freaked out by these happenings, but I wasn't going to show any fear at all. I knew that's what he wanted. I hurried to finish stripping the room, and then went downstairs.

No one downstairs gave me any indication that they had seen what had happened, or any bodies. Relieved, I went to work on the garage.

Nick O. was working on the garage already. I suggested that we just whip through it, fixing what was possible to do so quickly, and setting aside what was not. Above all, we had to fix the garage door, because that was a security hazard for the family. The garage door did not close. There was about a foot-and-a-half space underneath it. Anything could sneak in from there and endanger the family.

We looked around and found that the door had jumped the track, or else had been forced off it. I got underneath it and pushed up on it, hopefully to help with the weight of the door on its rails. Nick tried to put it back on, but it was not going anywhere. We got into a brief conversation, in which we asked where the family was. I replied that I wasn't sure, but that they needed to hurry up. We both looked at the ground underneath the garage door, and we saw a vehicle's shadow just sitting there. It had caught my eye as I was under the door, but I had dismissed it as I had *ahem* weightier matters to attend to.

{drum roll, cymbal crash} Thank you!!! {crickets chirp} *cough, cough* OK, that was really bad. I know. I know.
"SHUT UP, SMITHA!"
Ok.
"ON WITH IT!"
All right.

We rolled underneath the garage door. It was the family's Jeep Grand Cherokee. Had they gone and come back already? Nick and I looked at each other, and knew that they had not even left. Inside, the entire family was frozen in a very odd rigor mortis. The father had been slashed through the heart, and the mother, in an attempt to get away from her window, had moved closer to the father, but she was also frozen in death with a hole through her head. This one looked more like an odd bullet or a futuristic laser gun than the work of Freddy. The front windshield had a single hole through it. If you looked straight through the hole, you saw through the hole in the mother's head, and through the hole through their teenager's head, and out the driver's side, back seat window. They moment they were frozen in forever was the moment they opened their mouth to scream. That's why no one in the house heard this.

At this moment, I knew I was dreaming.

{pause}

Has this ever happened to you, when you realize you're dreaming, and you can simply take control?

{continue}

I asked myself, should I keep dreaming and confront Freddy, or should I wake up? There would be one result by my confronting Freddy: I would win. I already knew that. It was my dream, and I was in control. Instead of the confrontation that I wanted deep down inside, I woke up anyway.

Darn all the luck. I wanted an adrenaline rush, too...

Another weird dream

2005-12-19T20:19:00.000-05:00

I've had this partially recurring dream a couple of times now. It's such an adrenaline rush that I have to share it with you. If you can't tell, I had the dream again last night. The dream wasn't the same as last time. I can tell you that for sure, because if it was, I'd remember a lot more about it.

What was the same were the conditions, the location and the characters.

What was different was what happened.

Here's the dream, as much as I remember.

I was living in this massive house, along the lines of a mansion. The occupants in the house were the rest of the basement boys from my junior year, and my senior year. And guess what? I was still the RA.

Oh, and yes, I did have the greatest floor ever during those years. Trust me. Don't believe me? Ask them. ;)

Anyway, back to the dream. So there were about 30 of us living in this one house. This was the official basement dorm, and we were still on campus. Somehow. I don't know how. Don't bother asking me to explain it. Let's just say that the campus had quite the different layout in my dream.

Now as I said, this was a large, mansion-like house/dorm. It was simply glorious. I would spend my free time drawing a full replica of this house as best as I remember it just to post it here, but there are two problems: #1, I can't draw, so that's out, and even if I could, #2, free time? I still have that? This blog takes up too much of it already!!! Well, I guess that's ok. It kinda lets out my creative side.

Although I don't know if this is the better (best?) side of me...

Enough tangenting. Back to it.

As I said, the "basement" was magnificent. If you have seen Yours, Mine and Ours, take the house that they all live in, chop off the lighthouse tower, and add a story. This was about the size of the house. I don't remember the profile of the lighthouse, but I don't remember it being too deep. This mansion in my dream was very deep, but not as deep as it was wide. The building was whitewashed stone on the outside, lined with huge marble Corinthian columns (I think -- I looked at architectural columns online, and I think they were Corinthian), gold trim, ivory decorations -- the place wasn't just a mansion. The place was almost a palace.

Yeah, hook me up. :)

I may have even had a silver sports car... ;) Ok, no I didn't, but a silver sports car would have fit in quite nicely there...

Well, this palace was surrounded by huge gardens and forests which were just there. I don't know how, they just were. And if you zoomed out even more, you found that this place was on an island.

Some of you are probably asking, "How is this still the basement of Ben's, and how is this still part of Christendom?" You should know by now that most of my dreams are kind of way out there. My imagination is just running wild at this point. Just let go of reality and nod your head in appreciation of weirdness. :) Even if you don't really appreciate it.

Now if it's on an island, how do you get to it? Well, you could fly. There is a helipad there, of course. Or you could drive. Most people chose this option, as this presented the best challenge. You'll find out why...

Well, the girls decided to come over. I don't know which girls, I just know it was a pack of them. When I say "come over", at this point, I really mean "raid the dorm". I can't blame them. Catherine's, Campion, Margaret's, Theresa's and Augustine's (which is now a guy's dorm -- take that, you crazy womenfolk!!!) don't even hold a candle in comparison. No, a candle is too nice of a comparison. As it stands in reality, those dorms don't hold a candle to Ben's. In comparison to this, I should have said, they don't hold up a match to this dorm. :)

All of a sudden, I somehow sense that a great number of you are very upset by this wording. Just as a reminder, I don't go to school there anymore. Even if you were to raid St. Ben's, it wouldn't affect me. :)

Unless whenever you raid, you put down in big letters, "In loving memory of the great Smitha." Then it would affect me. ;)

But raiding St. Ben's is a can of worms that you don't want to open, right, ladies?

Anyway, the guys all saw that the place was being raided, and we all took off to the girls side. We figured that the best way to deal with this was to strike back immediately. But we all know that the Basement Boys are awesome raiders, so without any planning at all, all the guys hopped into the vehicles that were parked in the underground garages and took off down the road.

As I said, there are two ways off the island, driving or flying. You could boat across, but no one had boat, and besides that would take a while. There are two roads off the island: a quick way and a safe way.

Ken F., Paul P., Peter K., the Bobfather, Bryan S., Alex K., etc. -- like I said, all the guys with vehicles hopped in them and took off. Guys like John J., Michael C., dove into whatever vehicle they could. Both of my cars were in use. I was at the helm of the Acura. I tossed the keys for the Nissan at someone else, and they caught them. All the cars were full of raid-happy guys.

Now, just for clarification, raids are strictly against the rules at Christendom. In real life, I would never have been in the leader of a raid. In fact, I don't think I've never been a participant in a raid while in a position of authority -- another good mark for a clean record. :)

In real life, have I known about raids? Oh yes. What have I done to stop them?
Me: "Guys, you know that raids are against the college's rules, right?"
Them: "Yep."
Me: "You all know that I'll bust you if I catch you?"
Them: "Oh, yeah."
Me: "Good."
That's all that's necessary. :)

This is not how it was in my dream. Picture, if you will, over thirty guys walking out of their rooms and seeing a raid in progress. All eyes turn to me. My subconscious took over. I wasn't about to stop them. They knew that, and within seconds, we were well on our way to returning the favor.

I roared out of the garage, flames shooting out of the back of the fully-modified Acura. Bryan, in his redneck truck, and Alex, in his awesome old-school van with antlers, tore out of their respective garages, Dukes of Hazzard style, with Paul in hot pursuit in his own truck, pipe clenched in his teeth, and his shotgun at the ready. The Bobfather zipped along in his Beemer, tailed closely by Peter's overstuffed car (a Corolla, I think?). Anyway, the rest of the cars all zipped out, as I said, full of raid-happy guys, laughing in eager glee with what they were about to pull off on the girls' dorms. There were many roads around the island, all connecting to each other in a massive web, all connecting to the two ways off the island.

I decided to take the fast way. Some guys were right behind me, others took the safe way.

The safe way was a tunnel leading under the bay back to the mainland.

The fast way was a bridge over the water, but not any normal bridge.

{pause}

Have you heard of the term suspension of disbelief? I hope for your sake, you've already applied this principle. You'll really need it now.

{continue}

Along the lines of a video game, this bridge had a speed limit, but the speed limit was a minimum required-to-make-it speed. This was about 100 mph.

A little bit of physics applies. This is a high-enough bridge to not worry about high water, but not so high that a battleship can pass through. With this in mind, the engineer behind it designed a passage for the extra-large ships that would be passing through, and here's how it worked.

This road was a straight shot out over the bay waters, until about the middle. Just before the middle it zigged hard left, and then zagged even harder right. Then it went zigged back hard left so that the bridge was parallel to the road before the zig-zags, which makes anyone wonder why the zig-zags were there. And then, along the lines of Mr. Freeze at Six Flags over Texas, this road was a straight shot out, until it suddenly went vertical. Straight up. This is why driving 100 MPH was necessary, and faster was recommended. Physics lost all effect as the cars sped up from 100 MPH around the sharp bends, and continued to accelerate well into the vertical roadway. (The Gorillaz 19-2000 music video suddenly pops into my mind as an example.) Well, I already had the car in overdrive, the pedal to the metal, and I was accelerating from about 110 MPH. I hit the curves at 110, got out of them at over 125, and got up to 135 by the time I hit the vertical ramp. Part of physics was in effect, because while my tires were still on the road, I had the potential to accelerate -- it's just that gravity didn't work while my car's tires were on the vertical ramp. When I left the ramp at about 150 MPH, physics and gravity suddenly kicked in.

At this point, the engineer was a pure genius, because how I get out of this seeming predicament was not normal. Not that I'm implying that this predicament was by any means normal... In reality, a car going up a road like that would topple over backwards. Not this time. I shot straight up, and the vehicle began to decelerate, but still go straight up. One wonders what the point is -- I'll simply land on the same road I just took off from. Nope. Like I said the engineer behind this road was a genius. He knew that once my car reached a certain altitude, the winds would take care of the rest. And that's exactly what happened. The winds blew in the exact direction I needed to go. It pushed the nose of my car down and moved my entire car forwards, towards the road on the other side of this ramp. I took the car out of gear and took my foot off the accelerator. Time to save a bit of gas. ;)

By now, all upward motion had stopped and gravity had ahold of me, with all it's terrifying reality. I saw that I was heading exactly towards the road (car landing strip?), and I was very glad, because deep water lay everywhere else. The landing strip was also a bridge, not much wider than the road I had just been on. As I approached the ground, the sunglasses went on, the clutch went down, the car went into gear, and a second before I hit the ground, I popped the clutch and floored it. I hit the ground hard, for all it's worth, but the Acura took it very well, which is good, because less than a hundred feet in front of me was another sharp right, which led directly onto the mainland.

At his point, I had so much adrenaline going through my bloodstream that I woke up feeling like a million bucks. And very thirsty... I got up, got a drink, and tried my hardest to pick up where I had left off, but the furthest I got in it was that after I entered the mainland, I was driving through the forest on the mainland, only to be told by the real Ken F. that it was time to get up for work.

What a way to start the day...

An amazing series of dreams

2005-11-17T20:02:00.000-05:00

Well, for me they were amazing. You'll probably be bored to tears by them... ;)

#1
I was driving my new car to the Lilly's house. Now, to everyone who knows the Lillies, everyone knows that you don't have to drive along a steep rugged mountain path lining the coast of a huge body of water to get there. But, in fact, that's what I was doing, and I'm almost certain that my destination has not been misrepresented. Anyway...

Now, the new car is a two-door hatchback, with a manual transmission. The transmission makes it a lot more fun than an automatic, but it's a smaller car than my Sentra, which, also, needless to say, can be a problem for more than two people. Fortunately, it was me and one other person, although I can't remember who.

Anyway, I was on my way along this wide open highway (I'll get there, don't worry) in front of a long line of cars. For some reason, they are all tailgating me, flashing their lights, in an attempt to tell me to hurry up. Well, I'm already doing about 10-15 over the speed limit on this wide-open highway in a wide-open country. They could have passed me but they didn't. Well, A few short miles zip by, and I suddenly find myself decelerating, much to the dismay of everyone behind me, because up ahead...

...the road suddenly becomes a one-lane, one-way-at-a-time road, that is twisted, going sharply uphill, and along a very jagged mountainside. (See?) Now, I said that I decelerated. That's true. I took my foot off the gas, and shifted the car into neutral, so that I would slow down at a much more gradual rate. Everyone else braked hard and started approaching this turn with a lot more caution than I. I zipped along the winding path (car still in neutral) until it really started ascending, at which point, gravity slowed the forward motion of my car. I saw a speed limit sign: it read 2 1/2 MPH. That's right, 2.5, 5/2, 10/4, take it how you will, two-and-one-half miles per hour. Well, I was easily speeding, but gravity was helping slow me down.

And then something blew out the window. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was something like my hat. (For the sake of continuing the dream, I will say it was my hat.) By now, the car had lost all forward momentum, and had even begun drifting backwards. Well, I let it drift for a little bit, then applied the brakes, stopping right next to where the hat was. Unfortunately, it wasn't right there on the road, it was out a little ways. There was no room to actually get out of my car, but I could open the door and lean wa-a-a-a-ay out ... over the sharp drop ... and sharp rocks ... and deep body of water way below extending as far as the eye can see...

Well, I just barely got my hat in my left hand (my right hand was holding onto the door as an anchor for myself in this endeavor) when I woke up...

It was 3AM, I had been asleep since 10PM, and I needed a drink of water...

When I went back to bed, this is when the better dream occurred:

#2 (I think anyone who reads this one will get the idea of where this dream came from...)

It started out really weird. I was in a dark place, carrying this huge thing on a pole. I didn't know what I was doing or where I was going, but I knew that I absolutely could not put down this pole. I didn't even know what was on top of it, but it was heavy. There was some reason for me to be going fast -- it was like there was something or someone chasing me.

Anyway, I duck in and out of tunnels, stumble in the darkness and recover, all the time seeing this extremely faint light in front of me, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. In spite of however many turns I took, it was always the right one, or if it was wrong, I somehow always got back to the path.

I finally arrived at the light. I set down the pole upright and exhausted. I leaned the top-heavy pole against the wall in a corner. I took a breather, and that's when I noticed what looked like a ticket booth off to the side. I wondered if this is where I was taking this heavy object.

I walked over to the booth, and asked the person manning it, "Excuse me, is this the place where I'm supposed to be delivering this ... pole?" The person turned and looked at me. A few lights went on in the booth, and I could see it was a woman. She looked at me with some confusion, and asked me, "Delivering?" I told her that I didn't know what the pole was for, but that I was delivering it. If it was for me, why was I so worried about getting it to a destination in time?

The lady smiled at me, and told me to step outside. Something in me told me not to, that I wouldn't like what was out there, and that I would rather stay in the darkness-- after all it was bright out there. But her voice told me that everything was all right, and that I had nothing to fear. I turned in the direction of the light. She called me back. She said, "Don't forget that." And when she said those words, more light from outside shone inside, and I looked at what she was pointing at. The pole that I was carrying had a beautiful crucifix on top.

(Pause -- ok, you all know what a processional cross looks like. Picture that. Ok -- resume.)

The pole was a dark wood material, and the cross was much wider than the pole. The pole was about eight feet tall, maybe two inches diameter. The cross was about five inches wide and two inches thick. The cross was about two feet tall, and a foot wide. The wood was lighter in color than the rest of the pole. The corpus was silver. There were decorations on it, but I can't remember what they were.

Ashamed of my previous thoughts about "the pole", I hoisted the cross on high and proceeded to exit the cave. I was proud to be marching under such a standard.

And then I saw it -- one of the most magnificent sights that any Catholic would ever hope to see on the day of his judgment. I saw a magnificently huge army standing in perfect formation, all bearing their own standards, their own crucifixes.

Freeze -- picture the default Windows XP background: the green, rolling hills underneath a blue sky. Very peaceful. Now, picture that, but lusher, greener, bigger hills, valleys, mountains, stretching as far as the eye can see. More natural than anything you could ever see on a computer. The grass is soft and a couple inches tall. Flowers are shooting up everywhere. The sky is bluer than you've ever seen it. "Oh, no," you say, "I've seen the sky so blue, and the grass so green that..." Blah, blah, blah. Trust me -- you've never seen a sky like this before. Play.

All my family, relatives, friends, and neighbors there. (Not that I'm going to account for all of you reading this.) As well, there is an army (army is an understatement) of legions (still an understatement) of people all waiting to march. I walk out proudly bearing my cross, and I see that everyone has their own, perfectly unique to them. One I saw up ahead, but I couldn't place who the owner was, had a pole six feet tall, with what looked like a 4'x2' crucifix mounted on it. Now, that was bulky, but simply magificent. There were some crucifixes that were gold, some of silver, some of wood. There were tiny crucifixes mounted on top of extremely tall poles, etc. As I approached this body of people, I saw an opening next to Josh K. and in front of Ken F. The position would have put me between Ida F. and Josh. I took up the empty slot and Ida suddenly left and ran forward. I assume that she was commanding this particular regiment.

I woke up shortly after this. It was Ken asking me if I wanted to get up then...

A really weird dream...

2005-11-14T09:50:00.000-05:00

Last night, I had a really weird dream. I can't tell you what it's about. But I will tell you that I was played for a fool. And I woke up feeling quite foolish...