nq nq mntq

-Screwtape Letters quote: "Very well, then; we must corrupt it.", Screwtape-

Had some more memorable dreams last night, visited the moon, etc. Turns out, not only is there a base on the moon, but this base employs no airlocks, only regular doors. With doorknobs. Also: lunar restaurants. I also had a moment of lucid dreaming (short, as usual) again when I was doing my weird jumping thing where I sort of jump, then jump again before I hit the ground, eventually getting near the ceiling (I was not on the moon at the time!). It seems like this is the most reliable trigger.

Short & sweet for today: Happy Leap Day! Although you'll probably read this after the fact...

Remember to reality check. Failing that, figure out something weird like fly-jumping that you can only do in dreams (I think the technical term for this is "dream signs", which sounds altogether too vague and trippy to me).

nmqd jf q

-Fragment of a math proof: "λ is an eigenvalue of A iff det(A-λI)=0", and for all you poor, unmathed people out there, "iff" is not a typo -- it means "if and only if"-

Not much of a dream last night either. And, not much Mythbusters! It was the soda+mentos rerun that seems to pop up at least once a month, and is one of the few episodes I am now totally sick of. So I got to bed earlier, but still had too much going through my mind to really concentrate.

The apricot tree is blooming even more today. Also, I was outside... elsewhere... today (hey, I have to stay a little mysterious!), anyway it was a place that has these two particular trees that bloom like crazy every spring with little pink flowers everywhere. I think they're ornamental plums or something. The fragrance is magnificent and subtle. Oh, and there's a magnolia tree (I think) in the backyard of a house I pass in my commute; I hear those trees are an absolute bother to take care of, nasty rubbery leaves dropping, shallow roots, proper soil pH, all that, but their flowers ARE enormous. There is no sight quite like those bare, black branches -- that look too thin and whippy to support even a large bird -- topped off with humongous white flowers easily larger than a fully extended hand.

"Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these." (Matthew 6:29)

Reality check.

nmqd

-Matthew 19:10: "The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."-

Not much of a dream last night, too many things I was thinking of. Poor discipline. Fairly sure it involved posting on MYSTCommunity.

Spring, I think, has finally come over here, after that one fluke weekend of Rain!Attack. Seems like every year in this Great Domesticated Desert of Doom^TM there's always that one surprising burst of winter the week after you think spring has started. One would imagine that we would get smarter... but I guess "sun" is our default state, so imagining rain coming after sun is too difficult for our simple GDDoD minds.

Well, anyway, the trees certainly attest that spring is here: I'm currently looking out my window at a nearly heart-stoppingly beautiful apricot tree (side note: why do people pronounce "apricot" with a long "a"? After all, we don't pronounce "apple" like "a pull"). Quite a picture, that tree. It's the biggest one in my backyard; it was supposed to be a dwarf variety, and I guess it is because it's not "huge-OAK" size, but it's no shrub either. At any rate, I can see it from this second-floor window. Furthermore, when it sets fruit, scads of neighbors (and the occasional landscaper) must be enlisted in the consumption of the stuff; though the fruits are half again as small as a woman's fist, there are just hundreds of them during the on season, and picking them is a massive chore -- the top branches are so high up that no one can reach them from the ground, so the fruit there falls off and rots on the ground, so while we go pick the good fruit, we have to be careful where we step. Word of advice: stewed-squishy, ant-begotten apricots are never desirable flip-flop ornaments.

But right now, all it's producing are the classic faintly-blushed flowers interspersed with red buds and (as is the case right now) tiny yellow birds. I always think that spring's charms are overrated... that is, until spring actually comes around.

Reality check. Especially if it's rainy and grey out.

jfa mqa

-Mystcommunity quote: "Saavedro and the Hammer of Correction", Mystress (team member)-

I couldn't remember much of my dream last night, possibly because the topic of conversation is now completely unquantifiable to my waking mind. Oh well.

I realized recently that I have chubby fingers. This is odd mostly because I used to have unusually skinny ones -- skinny and grotesquely hairy. Well, they're still hairy, but now they're thick as well. Perhaps that is not entirely accurate. I noticed that when I flexed my finger, there was a significant amount of muscle bulge, like the classic/cheesy bulge a bodybuilder (e.g. the governor of California!) gets when he flexes his arm.

Only much, much smaller and less impressive. Comical, actually. I think it comes of playing the piano, specifically Bartok's Allegro Barbaro. By the way, if you're in piano, do not even ATTEMPT said piece. It is six pages long and yet professional pianists manage to bang it out in roughly two minutes. I have to play it for Certificate of Merit, which requires piano students to play at least one contemporary piece (at least at my level).

Which makes no sense, since few people listen to contemporary piano music willingly, unless of course it is Scott Joplin, who NO LONGER even counts as contemporary, but a new period called "impressionistic". To play one of his compositions, I'd have to chuck out either my romantic or my classical piece, and I'd still have to play contemporary.

Ah well.

Reality check. Particularly if the piano over there starts bashing you over the head with its strings.

7ts

-Myst 4: Revelation quote: "But the things that we saw did not make any sense!", Zanika-

Had a very odd dream last night in which I travelled all the way to the U.K. just to get my wisdom teeth removed..? What? On the plus side, the team of doctors (!) was very nice, really knew how to make me feel comfortable. Also, the teeth were dissolved rather than ripped out, which was... weird. Especially since they STILL had to numb me first.

I think I'll dig in the old memory bank today for:

Three Strangely Amusing Things to do in a Small High School (since students in small high schools have an amazing tendency to do things as a group):

1. Have everyone grip the sides of their cheeks and hold them out. Then, wait ever-so-quietly-and-innocently for the teacher to come through the door (this only works if the teacher is out doing something, of course). As soon as the door opens a crack, have everyone rapidly move their hands (ergo, their cheeks) in and out while loudly making "Wbr-wbr-wbr" noises. Helpless laughter ensues.
2. If the teacher wants you (plural, always) to read something out loud, and you (the class) decide you don't want to, begin making life interesting. The teacher will invariably have to go down the hall to copy something (small high schools=much more casual) somewhere in the middle. When she returns, she will be surprised to find that the lights are off, everyone is reading with a Southern accent, or else everyone is reading the text backwards (bonus: if you're teacher is absentminded or preoccupied, see how long it takes her to notice that the words are all backwards... surprisingly long if you're reading a book with lots of strange regional dialects).
3. Bring hundreds of tiny bouncy balls to school. During break (which in a small school, will often occur inside the classroom due to lack of outdoor facilities), disperse everywhere. Alternately! If your class is the more organized, sedate type, try the "bouncy ball rock-skipping game", wherein you treat the surfaces of the desks as a pond, and attempt to make the ball "skip" from one desk to the next. This is astoundingly difficult, particularly if backpacks, binders, and other detritus are stowed on the desk surfaces. See who can skip across the most desks. Vary this game by including skips off of walls, people, etc.

Reality check. Especially if you find yourself across the pond for a dentist visit.

n7n7t

-Achenar quote: "Sirrus is mad.", Myst 4: Revelation-

Two dreams last night, probably because I got to bed at a decent hour and had the proper amount of milk. Both were in college, which was kind of strange. One involved tons of puppies in the classroom, which was even stranger. But it was fun.

Another small despondency of life: fake plants. WHY??? Why must we be subjected to the most egregious pseudo-reproduction plants that mankind could ever produce? Are the people that make them blind, or just overly cost-conscious? I mean, LOOK AT ONE! From 100 feet away, it already looks fake, simply because the color is wrong. Even a "very good" (I use the term in a relative sense) fake plant is obvious the moment you touch it. What, after all, is the purpose of a fake plant? To freshen up the room? Sorry, I can just use green drapes for that, and they would look even better because they are not such obvious statements of neglect: "Look at me! I can't be bothered to water a PLANT every week or so, but I think I will pretend that I have a real plant, so that people who come in will think that I am caring and responsible and love puppies and clouds and sunshine and babies." Newsflash: you fool no one.

The previous paragraph was mainly tongue-in-cheek, of course. I won't despise you utterly if you own (or even produce) one of these ridiculous, garish throwbacks of the baroque era...

...I will merely strongly advise you to douse it in petrol and burn it. Quickly.

Reality check, please. Especially if the fake plant over there in the corner starts looming towards you like a low-budget movie monster.

jft mnn7

-Misheard quote: "Buhshtibble Butcake", which was really supposed to be "Apple Struedel Bundt Cake", go figure-

Didn't post yesterday due to busyness. No interesting dreams that night anyway. Last night, however, I did have a kind of weird dream, in that I met somebody in real life that I only know online. Weirder still, I met them while camping, which I've only done once, as a school field trip back in middle school.

I'm looking at the giant eucalyptus tree outside the window and wishing I could sketch it like Munin does for you folks. It is huge. Strange thing about these trees though, a ton of them got introduced into the Great Domesticated Desert of Doom^TM way back when people were still a little naive and only cared that they looked good and grew fast. Turns out they have a couple downsides.

1. Since they grow fast, they don't grow very deep. Result: when it gets windy like it is RIGHT NOW, they sway alarmingly and may even fall over. Like the massive one that is shushing around in the wind -- RIGHT NOW -- in my neighbor's backyard. Eep.
2. In addition, at odd times, branches will decide to dry out and fall off. This doesn't sound too unusual and it isn't, except that these branches are a good deal longer than I am tall, and very high up, and heavy-looking. I have seen them obliterate a new redwood fence when they fall.
3. They are flammable. Very flammable. As you may have heard in the news recently, the GDDoD is prone to burning up with roughly the regularity of the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano. I mean, fire is such a concern here that I have heard people propose quite seriously that arson be punishable with death.
4. On a similar note, eucalyptus trees require a lot of water. And as I discussed two days ago, you simply cannot "be a WATER HERO!" if you have to turn the sprinklers on every hour.
5. And for some strange reason, everything planted around them dies; in fact, if branches or leaves fall on the ground, they can kill plant life too. So the trees slowly develop desolate blast radii around them.

In short, a really silly plant to have here. But it does grow very big, very fast!

Remember to reality check.

ntq fsjfj

-Myst 2: Riven quote: "I am Gehn. I assume you've heard of me...yes...", Gehn-

Not much of a dream last night either, due to, heh, Mythbusters again. It was the Macgyver special! Which in my opinion was way better than the James Bond specials, because they didn't even get to use real movie clips for those, only animated story boards. Plus, Macgyver "myths" are true with surprising frequency, and I always enjoy when stuff is confirmed.

It's back to rainy in The Great Domesticated Desert of Doom^TM, which is interesting. Actually, it's a very good thing we're having all this rain because our snowpack was bad last year. Basically, for all you non-GDDoD dwellers, a low snowpack means a drought. Now, I know I've got readers that live where "drought" is unheard of, so I'll try to define it the best I can. A "drought" is where all throughout the summer, us GDDoD dwellers are FORCED to listen to snooty public service announcements on the radio about how "you can be a water HERO!" and other obvious/trite/irritating/repetitive drivel about how "climate change will increase the frequency of years like this one" and thus we must conserve water, which we all already do basically before we can walk here. Yeah. So of course, now fast-forwarding to this year, climate change is apparently very fickle, because this is literally the rainiest year in... some long interval of time that I'm currently forgetting. Thirty years? Not sure on that figure, but it's in the range.

Oh, and another thing that "drought" means here in GDDoD is less car accidents. Yes, we're so unused to the concept of water falling from the sky (and such *ahem* enthusiastic drivers to begin with) that the first rain of the season inevitably cripples commute for a couple weeks, until everyone is used to the new weather phenomenon, at which time the rainy season is pretty much over.

Conversely speaking, of course, the East Coast has "enthusiastic" pedestrians (read: jaywalkers), who aren't really affected by rain, being as they do not possess rapidly spinning rubber tires. Which is good, since I gather it rains year round (!) on that end of the country.

Reality check. Especially if it's raining.

ntq nnq

-Uncle Tom's Cabin quote: "Now is all the time I have anything to do with.", Miss Ophelia-

I had a dream last night in which I somehow managed to inflate vacuum cleaner bags (which were somehow much larger than the average vacuum), fall onto them, and fly through the air into a wall. This, in case you were wondering, was marvelously fun. In fact, now I'm a little disappointed I can't do this in the real world -- though this experience was, I think, an extension of my brain from the (perfectly doable) practice of trying to sit down on a partially deflated air mattress, then noticing that it is impossible to do so without the mattress bulging as a result, and flinging your legs into the air. Which is jolly good fun in its own right.

Other odd enjoyments I partook of today:

Procuring an enormous package of toilet paper rolls, and proceeding to rip open all the plastic and dump everything on the carpet. Delightful muted poufy sounds abounded, as well as modest little bounces, as the rolls... eh.... rolled and settled into the ever increasing pile. Also, as the pile got taller, the new additions tended to cascade faster and faster down the sides, and then had to be corralled back in from parts unknown. The fact that all this resulted in multiple trips to get the disparate soft objects into their respective bathrooms was well worth it.

And another little blessing I was surprised by, since I'm not a huge fan of cars. For the first time today, I travelled a bypass freeway that has only now been opened. The road was silky smooth with black-asphalt newness, there were barely any cars, and the ones that were there were clearly enjoying themselves, sneaking speed here and there, feeling out this glorious stretch of untrammeled road. I think the weather helped too. After some deceptive toeing into summer, we've gone back to a bit of a cold, rainy snap, and this meant that there was just that hint of fog over the family orchards in my area... the colors!

Reality check now!

q 7taqa q

-Genesis 1:11: "Then God said, 'Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.' And it was so."-

Isn't it strange how nightmares so often are really quite silly when you think about them afterwards? I had one last night that was utterly terrifying while I was lying in bed, but later when I thought about it, I think most of the emotion was supplied by the dream, not actually a response to the events in it. I also had a false awakening, my first that I can remember (which is odd considering how much people talk about thinking they woke up but really still being in a dream). The power was out, which of course borked any light switch reality checking right off. So no lucidity last night -- although I remembered my (2) dreams in more detail than is usual for a weekday.

What is it that makes me embarrassed when somebody else does something embarrassing? It is sort of irritating, this empathy. I'll just be minding my own business, halfway listening to another conversation, and somebody will misinterpret something, or jump to conclusions, or the like, and even though the conversation does not affect me in any way, I feel an awful sense of shame. This also happens when someone apologizes to me for something they did accidentally... I mean, really, did we HAVE to invent a ritual that everyone expects to be followed, for politeness sakes, that is so awkward to both sides, and that serves no purpose since they meant no wrong to begin with?

I fail to see how a cultural predisposition to (extreme) empathy benefits anyone. Yes, in small doses it supports the social structure, but in large, all it does is incapacitate more people.

Are you dreaming?

mntmntn7

-Myst 3: Exile quote: "WHEN will you get it into your THICK SKULL that you DO NOT MATTER TO HIM!!!!", Saavedro, doing his signature referring-to-oneself-in-second-person craziness-

I remember having 2 dreams last night, one I don't remember any details of at all, and another that was...boring. I have this vague suspicion that I might have gone lucid in the first dream (the one I don't remember anything about), but my mind was buzzing with so much stuff from the previous day that I couldn't recapture the dream.

Seems like remembering dreams is like trying to catch one of those little fuzzy seeds -- the ones that look almost like dandelion seeds but are perfectly round with the seed part in the very center, instead of hanging down. I used to chase those all the time when I was in elementary and middle school. There was a certain time of the year that they came out, only for a few days or weeks. I would go out to the blacktop or parking lot or wherever we had recess and see if I could catch one. It's more complicated than it looks! The seeds are so light and wind-catching that as soon as you even get close, the air around them moves, and they dart away like that. It's a totally lost cause if you breathe on them.

The tricky part is the very end, when you've finally found one that hasn't gotten hit by a sneaky breeze (in which case they tend to fly straight up into the air, too high for a puny little kid) or "frightened" away when you closed in, gradually, slowly. Finally catching the thing is so difficult... the moment your hands are near, the thing goes wild, flittering around like an insect caught in a screen door. It's a slow process of anticipating where the wind will blow the seed, then cupping your hands over the spot, careful to make no sudden moves or in any way actively go after the fluffball.

Then, of course, when I would finally catch one, after much patient concentration, scores of fruitless attempts and escaped seeds, I would always be sadly puzzled as to what to do with it. Usually I'd just let it go again.

Are you dreaming?

nmqt nmqt

-Luke 16:31 "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"-

Had a couple dreams last night, not too interesting. Kind of excited about tonight though because here in the U.S. it will be President's Day on Monday, so I'll be able to sleep in, which always helps.

Also exciting: Looks like it's starting to come around to t-shirt weather here. See, the thing about living in The Great Domesticated Desert of Doom^TM is that, as (the intense) winter lasts for a matter of weeks and comes at a slightly different time every year, there's no way that people have time to buy reasonably warm clothes...by the time they realize they need them, winter is over and bikinis and swim trunks dominate the shelves. So all our wardrobes are basically composed of t-shirts and the occasional half-hearted thin long-sleeved shirt. So we layer.

Unfortunately, layering is one of the small woes of existence, as it involves trying to uneventfully slide numerous layers of intractible cloth over one another. I fancy that they do not like sharing space with other garments, so of course they protest (also, they're not really bought with the intent of layering, so they're often extra-tight as well). Long underwear, I think, is the worst. I mean, come on, shouldn't long underwear be MADE with the whole purpose being to rest under clothing? But no! It not only is ribbed (so as to make sliding layers over it unusually laborious), but it also has a high collar (that invariably shows on the outside) and too-short sleeves, which instantly retract at the slightest hint of pulling shirts over it, with no way for you to hold the ends in place... your fingers simply cannot REACH!

So anybody in the industry, if you're reading this, take note...

Remember to reality check.

nq q nq

-Tardy quote: "Lafayette, we are here!"-

Had some good, memorable dreams last night, including one in which I became lucid (boy, that woke me up real fast). Unfortunately, I sort of had to choose between continuing the dream and maintaining lucidity, so I lost the lucidness pretty quickly. It was triggered when I did this jumping thing that I often do in dreams: where I jump, then before hitting the ground, jump again, so I gradually get higher and higher and get to soar around near the ceiling. It's rather exhilirating, especially when coupled with actually managing to realize I was dreaming for a few short seconds.

Did the silliest thing last night, when I was brushing my teeth (well, actually before it). I have a Sonicare toothbrush, so it requires a little assembly before use; the head of the brush gets screwed onto the rechargeable base. The head of the brush comes with a transparent bristle cover. I brush my teeth in the dark.

So I assembled my toothbrush, only to realize that I hadn't flossed yet, so I went over and flossed, leaving the brush leaning on the edge of the sink. Then I came back to it and got the toothpaste out.

As I applied the toothpaste, I was mildly surprised that the bristles seemed to be going on longer than usual. I have to use the fairly small bristle cluster (I have a small mouth), so this was a bit puzzling. Yet more puzzling, when I pulled the toothpaste tube up, to finish off a nearly perfect swirl of toothpaste (in fact, I was rather proud of how nice it turned out, no droopy mess like it generally is), my finger bumped something hard.

How strange, I thought, why are the bristles so hard??. I pulled up the brush to look at them closer, see if they needed to be rinsed or something.

It was then, of course, that I noticed that I had put that beautiful blob of toothpaste all over the top of the unremoved bristle cover. Life does have its small despondencies.

Remember to reality check.

7ta a

-Myst 4 quote: "I. Am. Sirrus. And I will not be DEFEATED!!", Sirrus (well, yes)-

Had a very strange dream last night involving showers and watches. Hmmm... let me catalog the reality checks I could have easily done: memory, mirrors, digital watch time. I'm a dork.

Well, I have mused occasionally what it would be like if really, inside their heads, other people actually had switched "colors" representing real-life colors. E.g. they might see a blue block, which they would call red, but really in their head they see what I would call orange. The funny thing is, when you think about it, you would never be able to tell because all the associations that go with each color would appear to be the same from the outside. I mean really, they could be "hearing" the color or even "smelling" it inside their head, but we would never know because they would have been trained all their life to call it seeing. And they would think nothing is odd. Additionally, "warm" and "cold" colors would still have the same emotional responses attached to them, because they would consistently see "warm" things in colors they CALL red, orange, and yellow, but which would actually appear in their heads as (what I might see as) red, orange, and yellow.

So I was pretty amazed yesterday to find out that this concept has a name. The thing that we see (or hear or feel or taste or smell) "in our mind's eye" is called a quale (plural, "qualia").

Remember to reality check.

a 7

-Brother (mine, younger) quote: "Your brain knows what you're thinking."-

Was able to recapture my dream last night (after a slight pause), even though I was up later the night before. I generally try to get to bed really early (i.e. 9:00 pm... that's 2100 for any readers in military time), but Wednesdays are exceptions because new episodes of Mythbusters come on from 9:00-10:00 pm.

::yet another FOOD discussion!::

Isn't it strange how often some of the best-tasting foods are combinations of absolutely loathsome ingredients? Some examples:

I am not too fond of baked goods, cakes, or breads (preferring rice for my grains), and I don't particularly like bananas, though I suppose they're okay. However, I adore my mother's banana bread, even when it is a couple days old, when most baked goods would be a horrific mass of soggy goo. In fact, I actually like it when the banana bread is undercooked and there is that absolutely glorious section of gooey, banana-y goodness in the center. Although, it's even better warm. I had some last night... o, but the crust around the edges was wonderful.

Another example. I am not a large fan of barbecued/chilied/shredded pork/beans what-have-you, nor do I really enjoy cheese. But when they are mixed together, with rice (which I do admit is rather tasty), the result is sublime. This contains the added puzzlement of a total lack of baking/cooking involved, so one cannot claim that the chemical composition of the ingredients changed... which leads me to my strangest example:

Deviled eggs. I am ecstatic with a deviled egg containing little more than a yolk mixed with Miracle Whip (which is basically a mayonnaise substitute) and green onions. A little perspective here -- I DESPISE eggs! I try to eat them, but no matter how they're dressed up (other than as a deviled egg) -- whether in salad, or plain, or fried, or scrambled, the taste of the yolk is swiftly rejected by my tongue. Also, I don't think I need even point out that Miracle Whip is absolutely disgusting by itself; that gluttinous globby glop of white curdling something that smells like some evil mixture of cream, sweat, and laboratory chemicals. I can barely stand it in a BLT or tunafish and pickle sandwich, if I hit any concentrated lode of the stuff, I nearly gag. But smushed together with the pasty yellowness of egg yolk? Ahhhhh... somehow, some way, the combination causes me to forget that I have willingly stirred together such twin monstrosities. Somehow that I cannot fathom, a deviled egg is completely delicious.

Remember to reality check.

,,7

-High School Memory: "Weeee will, weeee will HAWK YOU!!" (yes, my high school's mascot was a hawk -- and yes, this cheer is a whole lot funnier in real life)-

Seems like whenever I dream of puppies, they're always super-tiny. Like the one I dreamed of last night was a pink pug puppy that slept in a box that could've been a repurposed jewelry box.

Here's your (short) thought to ponder for the day: Why is it, that for most pocket calculators that have no "off" button (but turn off on a timer), you can make them turn off by pressing ON/C, [multiplication sign], and [division sign] all at the same time?

I'll wait here while you go try it.

Okay, now that you're back, tell me why that is...

Remember to reality check.

7a

-Ivanhoe quote: "I'll woo her as the lion woos his bride. -Douglas"-

Well, last night was more like it! I had two full dreams, one about cataloguing the traits of the villains in Myst (&c.). Oh yes I'm a nerd! Funny thing was, they were acting more like characters (more accurately, the KQ1 goat) in King's Quest (which makes me even more of a nerd!). Part of that dream was also pairing up with elementary-age children for a project, I think to make masks or something. Well, since I was thinking about "King's Quest" and "masks", of course my next dream was about playing King's Quest VIII: The Mask of Eternity, which, being a KQ purist, I haven't actually played. Suffice to say it was pretty weird, borrowing lots of plot details from KQ3 especially. And of course there's the weirdness that always happens when I play computer games in dreams -- I usually start as a player, but will always eventually end up BEING the main character... albeit with the added advantage of being able to restore saved games. I think what separated last night from the ones before was that I was able to completely clear my mind of everything but: "remember your dreams", rather than sitting thinking of every which thing and losing the dream when I awoke. However, despite all this, no lucidity. I am quite amazed at how dense I can be when I'm asleep.

You know, I've noticed that my brain works in a very peculiar way (but you probably figured that out already). What I mean is that, when I think of something, it generally has a very definite location in my body (usually in my head, but not always) that I mentally map it to. For instance, this blog resides somewhere in the upper left of my head. When I think about dreams (OOD...out of dream, as opposed to when I'm actually having them), that sits plastered on the inside of my face. I think this bizarre behavior has some function that helps me memorize facts, because often when I'm reciting a long piece I've memorized, the map location will change in accordance with the section I'm in and what's happening. Almost like the memories are literally stored in all these spots in my body, and I retreive them one by one, physically.

Except, of course, I'm positive that my arm has no mental capacity whatsoever, and, after my head, it is one of my most frequent map locations.

Does anybody else have this sensation?

Guess I'll leave it at that. Ta-ta for the day, and remember to reality check.

fsfjf fsfjf

-Fluteman quote: "B-b-b-but Clarence! I don't want to go to j-j-j-jail!", Oswald-

Had a dream about crossing an intersection last night. Took forever for the "walk" signal to come on. It was one of those traffic lights that counts the seconds off, and I think it went up to something like 100! Psh. I STILL didn't notice how suspicious this was!

I need to talk today about the term "cloud computing". Specifically, why is it called that?? I mean, yes, it is euphonic, yes, perhaps it even evokes lovely childhood images of your data being secreted away in some magical realm in the sky, but it doesn't make sense. First of all, what is the "cloud" referring to in real life? The computers? Well, we had a cloud of computers before cloud computing became fashionable. The data? Er, think about that for a moment.

Let me give you some background about me: I live in California (The Great Domesticated Desert of Doom^TM). So the idea of my data being little droplets of water in the sky is not altogether reassuring to me. Imagine being at work one day:

Boss: Ahem, Mr. Stubblesbon, where is the weekly report you were supposed to have finished today?
Mr. S: Ah, boss... I emailed it to you...but, uh, you see! Our next door neighbors, PettaBitBot Co, well, their servers have so many mountains of information that, heh heh, all our data precipitated on them!

(at PettaBitBot Co)
Employee: What is this???


Okay, so perhaps I'm not being completely fair. Perhaps they meant cloud as in... I know! An electron cloud! Yes! I still feel this apprehension:

Boss: Mr. Stubblesbon, what is your excuse THIS time?
Mr. S: Well, if you'll hearken back to your days of physics, you'll remember Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle!
Boss: (raises eyebrow)
Mr. S: The principle states that there is no way to know the position and momentum of our data at the same time... the weekly report could be anywhere! We can only predict where it is likely to be...

(at the ISS)
Astronaut: What is this? Expenses? Profit? (switches on vox) Uh, Houston? What's the word on the "weekly report"?
Mission Control: (collective brandishing of slide rules)


However, all this is not to say that I can think of a better term... (changes subject, rapidly)

Remember to reality check!

qjf a

-Ecclesiastes 1:8-11: "All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow."-

I had a much more reasonable 2 glasses of milk at lunch, 3 at dinner, and two (small) glasses with an evening snack yesterday. Much better results! A full (if disturbing, it involved slitting necks... well, at least no one died though, there was just a lot of blood) dream, one that I easily remembered to remember when I awoke. Also: less discomfort.

Wouldn't it be so cool if people actually had personal theme music like they do in video games and movies? I mean, like that actually played as they walked around and did their daily activities.

I guess you could give people these little devices to carry around all the time. They could communicate with other devices so you could warp the theme riff to match the ambient mood or harmonize with other people's music, if they were nearby. You could hook it up to a little biofeedback piece too, so it would change to match how you were feeling (like how in computer games you can always tell when the villain is angry because their music suddenly goes all ominous!).

To really take off, these would have to be (1) comfortable, (2) not too annoying (heh, fat chance finding a music style everyone can live with as a constant undercurrent of everything), (3) easy to turn on and off quickly if necessary, (4) and fairly cheap and goof-proof, i.e. you can make it convey the mood/style you want with little or no musical knowledge.

Hey, sounds like a job for Google!

Remember to reality check. Looks like I'm not dreaming right now: this text stays the same when I look away and back, I have 5 fingers, I can see my nose, I can't breathe if I plug it, and I come right back down if I jump. Of course, this could all be a part of YOUR dream!

fjfj n7 7 q

- RNA Codon: "UGG", codes for tryptophan-

Yesterday I used my famed ability at overkill and drank 5 glasses of milk at dinner. I had more of a dream than the night before, but that could be because I slept in. On the flip side, I was horridly uncomfortable. Have I mentioned that I think I might be partially lactose intolerant? Now I have.

Seems like people talk a whole lot about "life's little pleasures", but completely ignore the fact that life having little pleasures means that it also must have little depressions. There is no task quite so sublimely despondent as eating peas with a fork. There you sit, looking at all these beautiful, smooth, round peas, so perfect. You give a genial scoop, trying to manuever the utensil in such a way that the peas roll uneventfully onto it. Indeed, after a little tussle, the orbs rest on the space between the tines, and you begin to lift the fork to your mouth. Cue loss of peas. Again you try, glancing furtively around at the other people at the table, hoping you don't look as silly as you suspect. This attempt is once more futile. After a few repeats of this action, you give up and try to squash the pea in between the tines, carefully, hoping that its alarming bulging is temporary. After all, the pea is so pretty and unbroken, and you've done all this hard work keeping it that way! But the rebellious pea pops out on the other side of the tines, decidedly untrapped, and you're back to square one.

This process continues, with countless variations, contrivances, and thoughts of cunning. At the end, the pea has to burst, either by blowing up when pressed between the tines of the fork, or because you admit defeat and finally stab it.

And then there is that acute feeling of sadness as the pea deflates...

a fqa

-MYSTCommunity quote: "You can see this (But I can't, haha)", 300happy-

I had only two lines worth of dream journal this morning. Think it's because I had to substitute water for milk at dinnertime. I drank 4 glasses instead of 3, but that still wasn't enough to make up for it being, well, not milk.

::segue!::

I got started programming on a TI-82 calculator. Of course, this means that I only know BASIC, which is pretty much the dinosaur language, but I still have a whole lot of fun doing it. As usual, I am coding by the mantra of "if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing". For example. I just started a program intended for the lofty goal of supplanting the TI-89's onboard note taker. TI people will know what I'm talking about: though it's nice to have that "notefolio", it sure gets annoying having to switch to alpha, then find the letter you're looking for, and back again out of alpha for any commas or numerals.

Of course, I'm limited by the equipment. I went for the "organic" approach, e.g., you don't have to find the letter, but you use the arrow keys to trace it out (like <-^-> for A and <-v-> for V). Those biology nerds among you will notice another organic correlation.

I'm not entirely certain this will be faster than notefolio, because I'm lousy at good program structure, so there's lots of awkward pauses in the tests so far. However, it may be less painful (?) once I get used to it (well, and finish it, so it does more than just backspace, A, and space!).

I may consider posting the code when I finish, so y'all can laugh derisively at its ineffeciencies. May decide to post other programs I made as well.

But not today. Remember to reality check, and have a great weekend!

nmqt fjfmnfs7

-Habakkuk 3:17-18: "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior."-

Well, had a dream that I was a penguin last night. Still didn't realize that I was dreaming.... and this was after I had flown in a bunch of planes about to crash. Can't quite remember how my brain managed to transition me between those two episodes.

Guess I'm not dreaming right now though. I have 5 fingers, I can remember what I was doing an hour ago, I can see the tip of my nose, and ::jumps:: I can't fly. Oh, and I can't breathe when I plug my nose.

And now for the random segue of the day:

Has anyone else ever wondered why it is the normal practice in high schools to begin with Biology, then Chemistry, then Physics? I mean, to me it makes more sense (as long as you have enough math background- which could be a little problematic I suppose) to take them in the complete reverse order. Chemistry builds on stuff you learn in Physics (plus you need zero chemistry or biology to understand physics), and Biology DEFINITELY needs Chemistry knowledge beforehand to really make sense.

As we customarily do it now, Bio students are stuck pretty much just memorizing the names of animals and parts of the body, instead of actually figuring out how the things work at a basic level (e.g. DNA, protein folding, how ATP really works not just memorizing that it's the energy carrier), as it is done in college. But perhaps I'm different. I do know that I tend to be a very "macro lens" kind of person, wanting to look at the details all the time, none of this big picture first and all that. I joke that that is why I ended up being nearsighted (more likely the other way around). But I notice that I tend to hold books very close when I read them, sit squashed up against the table when I write, that kind of stuff.

And yes, I do take a whole lot of photos in Macro setting.* In case you were wondering.

That'll be all for today. Now ask yourself: "Am I dreaming?"



*by the way, why is everyone concerned about getting so much ZOOM out of point-and-shoots? I think that R&D would be better spent figuring out how to get a point-and-shoot to take a decent Macro shot.

n fqaa

-Cooan idiom: "mqmt fs nmq mnn7" [slowly to the sky grows the tree]-

Well, guess the topic I'll dish out for today is lucid dreaming. You know it's weird, I know it's weird, but when you yank out the bizarre mystical balderdash that sometimes sneaks in, it's sort of cool. I'm going to try to report a little here on how I'm doing with it, because I hear that you can improve your chances at having one if you have some accountability. So, here goes:

Haven't had a full one yet, only one partial WILD (wake-initiated lucid dream) where I sort of lost it after a few seconds. Milk seems to help, but it has to be a WHOLE lot, like 3 glasses at lunch and at dinner. I think mainly it's just the placebo effect, but it seems to help me remember dreams. That, and of course, keeping a journal. I thought that this would be a pain, but it's not that bad when I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night anyway because I drank so much milk! I just fill it in by the nightlight and it doesn't disturb my sleep too much. In fact, I remember my dreams better when they come after waking up (the WBTB or wake-back-to-bed) technique.

I do have to remember my REALITY CHECKS though. These things make so much sense if you remember to do them! ::counts fingers to make sure there's 5:: This, I think, is why I have the strangest experiences yet it never strikes me "Hey, idiot. You're dreaming!!" (haha random <Myst KI Exile spoiler alert!!> Saavedro use of second person).

That's all you'll get from me today. Kindly remind me to do RC's, and I'll remind you, 'k?