Super Dream

*** Dreamt Sept 20-21, 2008 ***

I was superman. That's right, the cape-wearing, high-flying, man of steel. And I felt awful. I'd been doing a lot of thinking and had noticed that in my feats of daring-do that I'd actually created quite of bit of destruction throughout Metropolis. I was just trying to save the world, but as a side effect I'd actually caused some major problems for some people.

I flew down to this video store through which I'd recently thrown some super villain. I went in to apologize for the damage and to find out if there was anything I could do to help, but the guy went off on me. I'd actually caused so much damage that the guy couldn't pay for repairs and he'd ended up losing his business. I felt so bad.

I flew outside and rounded up some of my super buddies (spiderman and aqua man), and we decided that we were going to go around the city and try to repair anything that we'd accidentally damaged. At the top of my list was a sky scraper that I'd somehow knocked over. It was tilted considerably to one side, and was now leaning on another building. I flew over to it and started pushing it back upright. Spiderman, who was down on the ground, had attached several webs to the top of the building and was pulling to help give me some leverage....although I really doubt he was helping, I mean, c'mon, this is a BUILDING we're moving, and I was freakin' superman!

I got the building upright, and felt some sense of accomplishment. I looked down at Spidey, gave him a thumbs up and we headed of to find some more of our damage.

*** ***

This was a rather unusual dream for me, not so much because of the content of the dream, but the fact that I was somebody else. Often in my dreams I'm in situations that I've never actually (nor ever could be in)...I've been able to fly, I've been an olympian, I've been lots of stuff...but it's always been ME. In this dream I was superman; not me with the powers of superman...I was him. I'm not really sure why that stood out so much to me, but it was definitely something unusual for me to have a completely different identity in my dream.

Do you ever dream you're somebody completely else (not just you in bizarre/impossible circumstances)?

GarlickDance 2009: Silent Films

The script has been selected for next years GarlickDance film festival! And the winning script "writer" was me!! Ha!! Okay...the victory isn't nearly as impressive as it sounds, because I didn't really write anything (you'll notice I put "writer" in quotes). My movies tend to be very visual and action driven...and as such the real trick for me is figuring out how I can let the characters say the lines in the script without interfering with my action. So this year I had the idea to submit a script that was blank...basically a dialogue-less script, and it won! Crazy!! Here's what I submitted as my script:

"(This is a dialogue-less script. There is to be no speaking by characters, nor other means of delivering lines as has been used in prior GarlickDance films. As per GarlickDance festival rules, a narrative prologue/postlogue is allowed, but once the film "starts" there is to be no speaking, subtitled actions, or dialogue captions. As with all GarlickDance films, background music with lyrics is allowed so long as the lyrics are not used as a means of delivering lines.)"

Several people have, in past years, complained about being forced to follow the script...this gives those people a chance to have complete freedom as directors. Well...almost complete freedom. So that there will still be a common thread through all the films, it was decided that each film is required to contain: A Duck, A Flower, and A Cutting Tool. These can appear in the films as overtly or as subtly as the directors desire...they've just gotta be in there somewhere. The idea behind having these objects is that they're fairly random, although common enough that it shouldn't be TOO hard to stick them in the films. Traditionally a big part of the GarlickDance Film Festival has been seeing how each director chose to use the same lines in different ways...hopefully these required "objects" will provide a similar How-will-this-director-use-them kinda thing.

Anyway, I'm excited to start. I laid in bed for a good hour before I fell asleep last night, thinking of ideas for dialogue-less films...no real winners yet, but something will come I'm sure.

Tribond: "The Olympics", "Baltimore", "Jodie Foster"

If your guess was 3 things featured in my dream Sunday night, then you get a point!!

*** Dreamt Aug 31-Sept 1, 2008 ***

I was in Logan at the huge new Olympic speed speed-skating venue with my parents. We had pretty amazing seats and were having a great time watching the skaters cruise around the rink as they strove to make it to the finals. As the night started to wind down, my parents started discussing whether they were going to go back to West Point or if they should just go to Baltimore, Maryland.

I asked what was in Baltimore, and my mom pulled out his huge genealogy poster she and my aunt had been working on. I didn't know how to read it, 'cuz it wasn't really a pedigree chart...more like a big table with names in the column and row headings, and smiley-face stickers in several of the squares. Apparently my mom had found some long-lost relatives that now lived in Maryland, so she wanted to go visit them.

As this discussion was happening, Jodie Foster showed up. She came and sat right next to me. She was very nice and was talking to EVERYBODY around us. I really wanted to take a picture to prove I'd seen her, but all I had was my cell phone camera and I was embarrassed to take of picture of her with it. So I set the phone on my lap like I was texting and kept trying to take stealthy pictures of her, but none of them turned out. Sorry. :(

*** ***

"Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit..."

*** Toned-Down on September 4, 2008 ***


Undoubtedly by publishing this I'm just opening up a can of worms, however, this is my soap box to the world, so I feel it necessary to vent.

My roommate Thad invented this game called "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit". In a devious act to back up the claims made in his game, he then wrote a wikipedia page about it, so that he could say he didn't invent it. In a stroke of pure genius he changed some of the rules on the wiki page from his own rules, so it appears that he plays a variation of the "original" version.

The basic idea is that if you can convey the phrase "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit..." to a person on the first day of the month before they have a chance to say it to you, you have successfully stolen their luck for the month.

You may be surprised to hear that Thad doing this to me doesn't annoy me...although I'm sure you won't be to learn that something else does!! "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit" is one of the bizarre little Thadisms that I've come to know in my tenure as one of his roommates. When he does it to me, it's almost endearing, 'cuz he's such a strange little fellow from time to time. When other people do it to me, however, it kind of makes me want to KILL PEOPLE.

When Thad 'Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit's me I think, "GAH!! He got me again!!" When other people do it to me I think, "This isn't my game!! What's wrong with you? You're supposed to get Thad!". When Thad gets me, I don't try to get my other roommates who aren't around...I warn them and advise them to get Thad before he can get them.

To be honest, what annoys me isn't the game or that others are using this Thadism against me...it's that they think that they "got me", that they somehow beat me to the punch and out-smarted me. The truth of the matter is that I couldn't care LESS about getting them. The only person I care to 'get' is the originator Thad

Now I'm sure I just offended several people, because several people did it to me this month whom I KNOW read my blog now and then...although ALL of them got me HOURS after Thad did, I might add, at which point I could have text messaged all of them and got them WAY before they "got me", but I don't WANT to get them!! GAAHHHHH!!!!!

Okay. I've said my peace. I'm sure that several readers of this will, out of spite, "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit" me next month. And once again I'll be incredibly annoyed and be forced to verbally abuse them to myself.