Hail to XKCD

Here is the original XKCD comic.

A living memorial

I'm on a bus with a bunch of people, heading out to a gathering which I know is a memorial service for Carl Paul (in real life, Carl has been gone for over a year and a half). We arrive at our destination which is in a park with a large gathering tent. I take a seat in a white plastic folding chair. Everyone is dressed a bit like hippies, it is a beautiful day and the air is warm. We see Carl alive walking around greeting everyone, wearing his tan leather jacket with the fringes in front. I think that it is strange that he is here, as if he knew he was going to die soon, and wanted to get everyone together one last time. We are all seated as he walks around with papers to hand out to people. I stand up to help him, because I know he must be weak, but he shoos me away. Finally I get my papers and I realize that they are individually addressed and that is why he refused help. Along with the papers is a small box. I open it and there are two items inside, presumably things he wanted me to have after he was gone. One item is an old HP calculator, which I believe to be more valuable than my own HP 32S. I am really touched by this gesture as I know how dear this calculator must have been to him. The thought crosses my mind whether to hock it on eBay or keep it for sentimental value because I wouldn't really use it. I quickly think that this is an inappropriate thought to think at a memorial and try to get my mind back on the service.

Observations: Our minds often confuse the living and dead when we dream. I didn't know whether Carl had an HP calculator in real life, but he was the type of person who would treasure one. I tried to find the actual calculator from the dream, it seems to be an HP 38e, but I dreamt it was bigger and had more buttons. Of course, I don't necessarily have to dream of objects that must exist in real life!

Bowling on Twitter

I'm going bowling with some friends and have to walk downstairs to the bowling alley. I'm trying to get a foursome, and I ask my friend Noorul, but she declines and then I remember that she doesn't like to use those communal shoes. I finally get another friend Marty as the fourth (can't remember the other two). While we are bowling, I think I'm doing well, but the score keeps hovering around 9. I finally realize that the scorekeeper is doing it wrong, subtracting points instead of adding them. Finally after we correct the scores, it is around 110. After the game, I go upstairs to a computer cafe. It is full of people with dark red walls and law office lamps with the green glass shades. I sit at a computer and try to write a twitter post about bowling. I can't seem to come up with anything and it is hard to type and see the screen which is tilted towards me on a slanted wall. My boss is standing behind me waiting for me to put up my post. I try to explain that this monitor is screwing me up. I type and it doesn't comes out witty or funny, and then it gets too long, over 140 characters. Imagine twitter anxiety in my dream!

Observations: This dream happened after I replied to geekparrot's twitter post about bowling, to which she replied here. Here is the transcript:

geekparrot: I bowled my best game ever - 144. Hee.
moonfever0: @geekparrot Awesome, real bowling is so much harder than Wii bowling!
geekparrot: @moonfever0 Well I'm still waiting to get my Wii, but yea, ain't nothing like the real thing.

Flaming Snowball Fight with Father Roderick

Ok, so this entry might be a bit obvious....obvious to me as to where it probably came from. It comes from a dream I just had this past morning.

I was driving my car up a road that I had driven up many times. (though not one that I was at all familiar with in real life)

I came to the end of the road, which had turned into sort of a driveway. I noticed that it had not only begun to snow, but that the ground was suddenly covered with it. In fact, the car I was driving started to slip and slide as I drove it.

I ended up driving the car into a snow bank behind the house. (it was stuck) I got out and went into the house. Inside, the house was a very open concept.....but in this case, very, very open. So open that there was no furniture or appliances. In fact, I was searching for a place to sit and all I found were tables to stand against.

While in the house, I guess I was sort of jumped on by Father Roderick, the priest who created the Starquest Production Network (SQPN) and who produces the Daily Breakfast podcast. We started to wrestle and somehow ended up boxing....except we ended up battling it out inWii boxing.

Neither of us won, and we somehow transformed out boxing into a Wii snowball fight....which instantly became more real when we exchanged the Wii controller for real snowballs. The battle started in what looked like the Living room and moved out to the yard where there was plenty of time and snow to continue the battle.

I ran behind the house, only to find that my car was not only still stuck in a snow bank, but that it was now smoldering.....apparently ready to catch fire.

I tried to throw snow on it, but Father Roderick came around the building and started pelting me with snow. I tried to hide behind the car in the hopes that Father Roderick's snowballs would hit it and put out the fire.

He was in fact throwing very large snowballs, but they only put out the fire....but the car continued to smolder.

It was about this point that I awoke from my dream. As strange as it sounds, Father Roderick looked nothing like the real guy. In my dream he was very tall....but he at least did have a Dutch accent.


WHERE DID THIS COME FROM YOU ASK? Well, that is an easy one indeed.

Earlier that day I had dropped something off at Angela's house. (and it was snowing out when I did) While there, she showed me her house. (which did have furniture and appliances) She then showed me their Wii gaming system.

One of the games I played was Wii boxing, and one of the Avatar's on the game is of Fr. Roderick. (though I never boxed Fr. Roderick...I did play baseball with his avatar)

Where the flaming car came from....I have no clue.

OMG: Where did my car go?

First of all, I want to say that I am a person who rarely remembers his dreams. When I mean rarely, I mean NEVER. I tend to only remember my dreams the nights I wake up with a fever breaking.....and I am luck in that I rarely get sick.

So this morning on the way to work I suddenly remembered the dream I had the night before. I quickly recorded it to my MP3 player since I was in my car going to work. (and had no paper or pen handy to take the notes.)

Here is the MP3 recording of how I described it this morning. (In that recording, I seem to have a stuffed up nose, so please bare with me)

In the dream, my Brother in-law Billy was over to my house for some reason, and he was now leaving in a bit of a hurry. I think he might have been late for work, but I only guess this because he would eventually motor up the street toward Manchester.

But as he backs quickly out of the driveway, he is doing so in a semi-out of control manner. As he swerves down the driveway, he cuts toward the mailbox and hits it. But he does not hit it hard enough to knock it over. (note: For some reason the maibox in my dream is on the opposite side of my driveway,,,and I'm not sure what the significance of this is)

Billy straightens himself out, and continues to very quickly back out of my driveway.

For some reason I had decided to park my Honda Civic out on the street, to the left as I look out my driveway. Then to the right, up the hill, I have a pick-up truck which is apparently also mine. (It isn't my old white Dodge, but some sort of a blue F150 and it is parked a little up the hill.)

As Billy backs down the hill he strikes my Honda civic, and as he does I see that the Honda seems to "lock bumpers" with the van that Billy is driving a van. (I note that Billy does not own a van, but rather a truck of some sort.)

When I see the cars locked together, I bolt from the front door and begin running down the driveway in my underwear and bathrobe....screaming for Billy to STOP, and waving my arms to get his attention.

I then notice that he is dragging my Civic up the street...and within a second or two he would be crashing into my truck. Well, he did and he began dragging both vehicles u the hill with him.

When I reached the end of the driveway, I remember seeing the civic sitting around unused. In fact, I thought I saw the Civic "fall-off" the van and I decided to shower and take my time retrieving it.

So my shower seemed to take forever (my dream shower mind you) and by the time I got back up the street, the civic was gone. In fact, there was a crowd of people where the Civic was, and the car was nowhere to be found.

I walked further up the street, only to find more party people and little clues on where my car and truck might be. So no matter how much I searched, the car was lost.

I continued to walk up the street towards RT3A, but no car was to be found. (the crowds of people were having fun as I came up to them)

I never found the car, and woke up about when I made it to RT3A. I never did find Billy, or my cars/truck.

What does it mean...who knows. A more interesting questions to me is, how is it that I remembered this dream over any of the others I have probably buried in my subconscious.

(BTW: I think my verbal recollection of this dream is better than my write-up here. It might have to do with the fact that my eyes are crossing from lack of sleep as I type this :-)

Multi-colored pasta

I'm eating in a fancy house which is not mine and we are cleaning up the dishes. I'm supposed to put away the leftovers of the pasta dish, which was barely touched. The large round dish is full of spaghetti with different colors in each quadrant: green, blue, yellow and red. There is more green than any other color. In the center is a pile of shredded beef or pork. I try to pull some of the green pasta up but end up getting some of the other colors as well. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to keep these colors segregated or not, but I manage to slide the whole dish into the container. Then I'm at the sink, looking out the old white painted double paned window and see everyone playing outside in the green grass. I'm wondering why I'm slaving over the sink, am I a servant here or something? I go to take a shower which I know is in a closet of a bedroom. The closet is now filled with boxes and then I realize that it's been years since this shower has been used.

Observations: Yes, this one is pretty disjointed, but I really liked the multi-colored pasta. At some point I also got very angry and upset, but I really can't remember why.

Swimming upstream

I'm in a house with all of my fellow co-workers. We are working on an assignment where we are to explain why the water from the river next to the house flow up through the pipes and sprays from the top of the chimney like a fountain. There are no pumps and it is a natural physical phenomenon. I try to guess capillary action, but they say no because the pipes are about 6 inches in diameter. Then my co-workers figure it out and try to explain it to me and I don't understand at all. I keep saying "I don't get it" and feel really dumb.

Next, I find myself in the river next to the house wading across to get to some balls on the other side. I believe these balls are the magic key to the upwardly flowing water. I'm stepping barefoot through some wet mossy areas, and then I realize that the river gets deep and start to swim across. Suddenly, I see my 3-year-old daughter in the river as well and try to tell her not to go in too far because it is too deep. She doesn't listen, so I have to scoop her up and swim with her to the other side. It is hard to swim against the river, but I manage to get to the other side. I grab the balls which look like multi-colored tennis balls and then swim towards the slider of the house. There is no dock or anything, the river runs right up the the slider. I help my daughter up and then hop inside with the balls and my sloshing wet clothes.

Observations: My 6-year-old son is now in the habit of saying "I don't get it" all the time. Earlier that day I was left off the a distribution list for a list of problems from our customer and felt out of the loop. My solar system is also broken, spewing water all over the roof when the pumps are on (no magic there!).

Balancing on Tabletops for Dragons

I'm in a Chinese restaurant in MIT student center for a company lunch. It is a really fancy place with tablecloths and I was wondering when they upgraded their eateries from the old nasty Lobdell dining center. On each table is a small painted jar that looks like a hockey puck. I realize that you need to stand on them on one foot and they will turn into miniature dragons. I hop gracefully from table to table, not disturbing my coworkers sitting at them and balance on all the pucks. A dragon pops out of each one and I gently hop onto the next table.

The waitress said, why don't you try these? She puts an egg into a cup of coffee on a counter that is higher than the table and then another puck on top of some cabinets near the ceiling. I'm doubtful that I can reach the one on the high cabinet, but I do try for the counter. I'm worried about breaking the egg when I stand on it, but do it anyway. This time it doesn't pop, but I do manage to stand on the round floating object without falling. I try to swing myself up onto the top of the tall cabinet, but I hook my legs the wrong way and can't really reach it.

After we return to work, and there is announcement over paging system about the four different types of dragons that were there at the restaurant like a seminar class.

Observations: This dream probably comes from spending too much time the evening before playing Mario Brothers on the Gameboy and jumping on opponents. The whole dragon reference reminds me of the dragons in Harry Potter and the Secrets of Harry Potter podcast that discusses them.

Traveling with Father Roderick

I'm walking around in Amersfoort, the home town of Father Roderick, podcaster extraordinaire of Catholic Insider and Daily Breakfast fame. I'm following Fr. R around the rainy streets and we arrive at his home. It is different than what I imagined. I've heard his description of living on the 2nd floor (1st for the Europeans) of an old house and seen videos taken within his studio. This place is a one bedroom apartment in a building. When you walk in, the bathroom is immediately to the right and it is covered in bright red and white checkerboard tiles. His apartment is also richly colored in dark reds and decorated in a gypsy style. With us is a woman who he obviously knows well and they are talking and joking with each other at length. I notice as they are talking they are touching each other in an overly friendly way. I feel part of this group but obviously left out of this "special" relationship.

Observations: A few weeks later, Fr. R went into detail about priestly celibacy. He also mentioned at a separate time, that he is certainly not perfect and needs to work on some things. I certainly don't think that he personally has issues with keeping relationships with the opposite sex at bay. He is extremely friendly and charming and has a dynamic personality where I could see plenty of women falling for him.

Trip to India

I'm taking a business trip to India. I arrive at the hotel and go to check in. On the way to the front desk, I see a co-worker coming out of the elevator. I feel relieved that I know someone in this foreign country. He is in a rush to get somewhere but mentions that both he and his wife are there and they are on floor 10. Hopefully, I can get a room near them. I get on line to check in. As I approach the counter, I try to fish out my company credit card and I can't find it. I have my purchasing card, but you aren't supposed to use that for travel. The front desk person looks at me impatiently and I can see that the line is getting longer behind me. A woman employee tells me that I'm taking too long and asks me to move to a different line. I'm so flustered that I simply follow. Finally when I get to the counter, I decide to use my regular personal credit card since I will at least get a 2% benefit back. The clerk tells me that since I'm not using the credit card that I reserved with, I will be assigned a different room, as if this were a e-Ticket check-in at an airport kiosk. I'm a little concerned about this and ask where the room will be. He says, "Actually, your pool is right here around the corner, but the room is in building 10-D which you well be escorted to."

I look around the corner at my assigned pool and see this room with a small pool which is about 10 x 15 feet made entirely of stainless steel like a huge sink. It is extremely crowded, filled with Indian people. There were two levels to the pool. Around the shallow outer ring, all the adults were sitting around the edge with their feet in the water. In the center of the pool, all the children were playing inside. The water was divided into three colored areas, one red, one blue and one green, as if the children were swimming in various jell-o colors. I couldn't tell whether the color was achieved by actual colored water, in which case they would probably easily mix together, or lights from above or under the water. I thought this pool was pretty cool and different from pools back home, but it was so crowded and filled with local people that I did not want to try it. There were several rooms with these pools for the different parts of the hotel.

After check-in I was asked to hop into a cream colored Mercedes car which would take me to my room. I had a soft duffel bag for luggage which I stuffed into the foot well of the back seat before hopping in. There was another traveler going to the same building. He was chatting with the driver about some restaurant and karaoke club that he liked and the driver said it was right around the corner from our building. We drive around for quite a while, turning so many times that I quickly lose my direction. I look out the window at all the new sights and sounds of India and think about taking out my camera, but I'm more concerned that I don't know where I am and I know that I'll have plenty of time to take pictures later. Finally, I see "10-D" on a nice beige complex that look like American condos with garage doors in front. We drive through the parking lot and drive back out onto the streets. After a couple of turns the driver stops and lets us out. I ask why we aren't at building 10-D and the driver said the we were being dropped off at the karaoke club that the other passenger mentioned and points to it across the street. I somehow missed the conversation where this decision was made. The driver informs us that our lunch has been prepared and sets them up on picnic benches along the sidewalk.

My kids are suddenly there and I have to make sure all the Indian food is to their liking. An older Indian woman sits down besides me and I find that I have to move all our meals down the table. She has a lot of wares with her as well and takes up a lot of room. I realize that the guy I was traveling with has his lunch packed up and is walking towards the club across the street. Since I'm no where near the co-worker I had seen previously, I feel this is the only guy that I know in this country, plus I can't even remember how to get back to the hotel building. I call out, "Steve?" He doesn't answer and I realize that is not his name. I run over and tap his shoulder and ask him to show me how to get back to the hotel building. He points down the street and says just go right at that traffic light, then go left and the building is on the right. I ask him, "Can I have your phone number because I don't know anyone else in this country?" I'm a little concerned that we probably don't know the local number of the hotel and that our US cell phones won't work with Indian providers, but he willingly writes down his name, Roger, and his phone number on the back of a receipt. I, in turn, do the same and write down my work phone number (obviously this will do him no good, but I'm not so logical when dreaming).

After watching Steve (apparently I refuse to believe his name is Roger as I type this) cross the street to his restaurant, I turn back to my kids and see them running around the sidewalk with a bunch of headbands from the woman with the wares. My son (6) is chasing my daughter (almost 3) trying to put them around her neck. They are laughing and having a great time. I start yelling at them to "Stop!" and "Give those back!" and "We will have to pay for those!" I'm concerned that I don't have any Indian cash as I had forgotten to exchange some at the airport, and I'm sure this woman cannot take a credit card. I'm completely at wits end with the kids when I suddenly realize that I have to wake up. I wake up, look at the clock and it is two minutes before the alarm was set to go off. I'm extremely relieved to be out of that stressful situation in India.

Observations: Of course, I've never been to India. I rarely set the alarm, but I was going to a seminar this morning in not so foreign Manchester, NH (in which I wrote the draft of this dream in its entirety). Last week I planned business trips to benign domestic cities of Palm Springs, CA and Chicago and certainly will not be bringing those crazy kids of mine. We did take a family trip to Disney World two weeks ago, and I probably said all those phrases, but it was not nearly as stressful as I thought it would be.