I don't normally talk about my dreams, but the last week of visions has produced such an odd assortment of images, I'm documenting them here for future reference.

Tuesday: I was leaving dinner in a small Mediterranean cafe (think Rick's from Casablanca) decorated in earth tones, especially tints of green. A Jeep CJ pulls up to the door as I am leaving; it's roll-bar mounted lights practically blinding me in the doorway of the cafe. To my surprise, behind the wheel of the dusty vehicle is an ex-girlfriend of mine. She casually (and gracefully) leaps from the vehicle, her shoulder-length hair streaming behind her in the sudden breeze. She is wearing a loose white blouse, tan jodhpurs, and brown riding boots. (Of course, she doesn't look quite so... equestrian in real life. And she's not so tall or well-endowed as she was in the dream. You know how dreams are.) As she enters the cafe, throwing suggestive glances at me, I notice that she is accompanied by a friend of mine from high school. (I barely notice him, focusing my attention on her instead.) The three of us sit and enjoy a long conversation about "the good old days."

Wednesday: Shawn Spencer from USA Network's Psyche and two other popular television detectives (I can't for the life of me remember who they were now. One was male and one a female; I should have written it down when I woke up) are meeting for a cocktail party at my anti-bellum mansion. Shawn decides that there has been a murder in my living room and sets out to solve it. The other detectives refuse to believe that a crime has been committed (there is no body and no clear evidence of a crime) and set about insulting Shawn while he investigates. The dream cut to a commercial break, and I don't remember how the episode ended.

Thursday: I've returned to high school. (This is a recurring dream of mine. I usually return to high school for no reason: even in my dreams I've already graduated from college.) Because I've already gotten my degree, I'm a total jerk to the faculty and students whenever they try to make me do anything. The teacher of my literature class is a grandmotherly lady made entirely out of silver. As she lectures me, I begin to fall asleep in class. I fight to stay awake, but to no avail. When I finally pass out in my dream, I woke up in real life.

Friday: I was working as a secretary in a small college. I'm a total jerk to everyone, and I complain about the small size of my office. I usually have to take elevators to other buildings, including the gigantic parking garage. The elevators frequently break down or force me to switch elevator cars in dangerous positions: narrow outdoor ledges at high elevation, etc. The head office of the school is in the center of a glass building. Since the elevator is the primary means of travel, I usually take my office chair with me on trips around campus. One day I notice that there is no one else around the building. When I investigate, I find that all of the classrooms have been taken over by Orcs, who have burrowed into the school and turned it into their underground headquarters. I decide to fight them with a broomstick. I don't remember anything about the dream after I head into the Orc caves with a broomstick.

Whatever I'm doing before bed, I clearly need to stop doing it.

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Today I finally listed on eBay those coin paintings I've been working on. We'll see what comes of it. My friend Chris recently completed a great Mego head Batman painting and listed it on eBay and (as of this posting) has received no bids. It's hard to be a starving artists, I tell you.

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Ok, I've been busy. I have a new swf up on my bio page. And last night, just before I drifted off to sleep, i had another idea about a new intro for the site. If I get started now, and it takes me as long to finish the new intro as it took to finish the old one from conception to completion, by this time in 2008, I'll have a new intro, too!

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Today I was flipping channels and caught the very end of G4's Electric Playground (a show I really don't much care for usually). They were discussing The Movies and it's Chrysler Competition. As Victor Lucas wrapped up the show, they showed the competition website onscreen. I was stoked to find my submission, A Dog's Tale, very visible on the television. It was sweet.

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This weekend, while searching for spouts for an absinth bottle, a friend of mine told me that I was each day growing closer to the textbook definition of a sociopath. I told him that I didn't care what he and his books had to say!

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This past weekend, my brother and I were attacked by a spontaneously exploding tempered glass bathroom door that we were planning to install. (I blame witchcraft, I do!) My mother insisted that my brother go to the hospital to get stiches for his sliced hand. To cheer him up, I bought us Clue!, one of the very few "classic" board games that we didn't already own.

I had only played Clue! a few times, and I had certainly never won. Ever. So I was determined to win at least once. My mother, my brother, and my brother's girlfriend agreed to play with me. They were pretty good sports about it, too.

In the end, I made them play game after game for over 5 straight hours, until at last I won a game. I'm pretty sure that they let me win, especially since at one point my mother accused Col. Mustard of committing the murder in the Study with the Revolver when she was later revealed to have the Study in her own hand. But who cares how I won? I won! That's the important part. And everyone else was a loser! Ha! Take that, losers!

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True story: I'm walking around my apartment preparing to take a few photos for eBay with my digital camera. I'm also absent-mindedly munching on a handfull of Nabisco Wheat Thins. (That's product placement, by the way.)

I'm a little surprised when I pop a cracker into my mouth and bite down. Unlike your average Wheat Thin, this tastes like plastic. And it's smooth. My first instinct is that I must be chewing on a wrapped prize like you find in cereal boxes and Cracker Jack boxes.

I take it out of my mouth and find that I have just bitten through my camera's memory card. D'oh!

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Twenty-years ago in 1986, the Post-Walt Disney Co. used its regular Sunday night "The Wonderful World of Disney" on ABC to showcase a number of failed pilots of dubious creative distinction. Several of them stand out in my memory, including "Mr. Boogedy" and one called "Northstar" about an astronaut (played by Greg Evigan of "B.J. and The Bear" and "My Two Dads" fame) who gained super powers from sunlight through a freak cosmic accident. Of most importance to me, however, is the move called "I-Man," starring Scott Bakula in the title role. To the best of my knowledge, "I-Man" aired only once before disappearing into the black-hole of un-produced pilots.

"I-Man" was about a regular guy who was granted super-human powers of self-healing through a freak accident not-too far removed from the origin story of Daredevil or those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The only hitch in his alien-induced Wolverine healing trick is that perfect darkness is now fatal for him. Figuring that complete darkness is so rare that he has little to worry about for the rest of his unnatural life span, I-Man, short for Indestructible Man, naturally, decides to turn his powers to the unselfish causes of truth, justice, and American television.

Soon, I-Man has been discovered spying for the U.S. government, as was his wont to do, and is captured by the stereotypical dastardly rich villain. He finds himself (in true super-spy tradition) invited to breakfast with the villain and his co-conspirator, the treacherous she-spy turned traitor who was responsible for the revelation to the enemy of I-Man's amazing powers (by stabbing him in the arm with a knife!). When asked how he likes his eggs prepared, I-Man responds with a snarl towards his former comrade, "Benedict, as in Benedict Arnold!"

At this point in the dialogue, I, a 10 year-old boy, laughed and said something to the effect of, "he's angry that she stabbed him in the arm." My father wasted little time in correcting me with the observation that I-Man was not disappointed in being stabbed but rather upset that the enemy was now aware of his super-secret healing factor. Of course, my father was right, which I realized as the words were leaving his mouth.

Eventually, I-Man escapes the enemy's pitch-black death-trap, discovers that the she-spy turned traitor is only pretending to be a traitor and has been revealing information to the enemy so that she can pretend to be a double agent and learn the enemy's secrets (I'm sure that this tactic makes a lot of sense to women), and discovers that his son has the same healing powers that he does just in time for a happy ending.

But none of that last bit is really important, and I couldn't tell you what happened during the final portion of that film if my life depended on it.

Man, do I HATE to be wrong.

(On a related side-note, eggs Benedict were not named for Benedict Arnold, as this show would have impressionable young viewers believe. Instead, they appear to be named for nineteenth-century New York City native Lemuel C. Benedict.)

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I've discovered that the trick about quitting your job so that you'll have more time to work on your own projects (the "great American novel," a new boat, or -- as in my case -- a comic book) is that everyone that you know says, "hey, you don't have a job, why don't you come give me a hand doing >insert diversion task here< for little or no money. In my case, the activity of my social life is inversely proportional to my economic income.

On a very related note, I took to watching T.J. Hooker seasons 1 & 2 on DVD this week. Hooker represents the golden years (cue tv host Tom Massie: "GoooOOOOOoooold!") of Shatner television. The character of Hooker is somewhere between Dirty Harry and Joe Friday; a television recycling of the high-water points of previous TV cops into a confusing mess of ideology and practice. Hooker is a walking cliche: a "tough-as-nails" ex-soldier turned cop who left his cushy detective desk job to return to the mean streets of the unnamed "L.C." city as a beat cop with a rogue streak and a rookie partner. Confusingly, these beat cops spend more time solving major crimes (snipers, stalkers, gun runners, and other common television crime cases) than the plain-clothes detectives of the uncommonly mundane named "Academy Precinct." Shatner pulls it off with aplomb. If you've not seen it yet, get to it, cadet!

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My memory extends backwards about a fortnight. So, no, I can't remember the last time I updated this site.

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