only in dreams

Been AFK for a while with post holiday brokeness and worming my way through the mountain of books Santa brought me this year. My thoughts on those shortly, but in the meanwhile I've had this bizarre recurring dream that keeps rolling through my thoughts that I wanted to write a few words about. But first ...

On the topic of dreams; I got into a disagreement with a friend recently who told me she believes dreams are simply our interpretations of random firings of neurons and are not to be given any more thought than any other idle curiosity. I agree with her as far as the random neurons firing go, but if random neurons X, Y, and Z fire off in my brain and the "same" ones go off in yours no doubt we will interpret them differently and that is where the value of a dream lies (IMHO). I consider a dream to be a sort of internal Rorschach test and have often found that giving a dream some thought can reveal insights about myself that ring with a resounding truth which I may not have reached otherwise.

Having said all that, mine are pretty standard first person perspectives. I've had friends tell me the are always an observing "eye in the sky" in their dreams, and even one very empathic friend told me she is quite often multiple people in her dreams, switching back and forth to carry out the roles of others from their perspective.

Me, not so much. I'm usually just me.

Beyond that though, when I am able to actually recall a dream they tend toward the unusual. Example: my toddler brother was once made of blue glass and when he tried to speak his tongue fell out and smashed on the ground. I yelled at him that he'd "better grow a new one quick, or mom will be mad!". I was also once trapped on the outside of an Earth orbiting space station trying to find something to eat because all the hydroponic tomatoes we'd grown inside were poisoning the crew. Y'know ... unusual.

So this leads me back to the recurring dream.

Abnormally, I am a floating eye in the sky this time. The scene unfolds in front of me in a sort of animated Ken Burns effect, panning right and left from different angles. I'm watching a sort of Roman feast, a large group of people, not all of whom I can see, are gathered around a table heavily laden with fresh fruit, roasted meat, and dozens of rich looking goblets of wine, all illuminated by dancing flames I can only see reflected on the dishes and their faces. I can't discern the conversation but it's very loud with lots of hearty laughter, back slapping, and toasting. The one thing that I can see everyone doing is eating.

Every conversation and belly laugh is accompanied by full mouths of half chewed food with juices freely pouring down cheeks and dribbling through beards. The fronts of robes and gowns alike are spattered with gravy, wine, greasy fingerprints and who knows what else. As I notice all this mess contrasting the finery and rich dishes laid out, the panning slowly settles on two men who seem to be the hosts. Both large, both jolly, both leading happy conversations with different groups of guests. They're just so damned happy that their eyes are practically bulging, and their roaring laughter is creeping towards maniacal.

Then, very suddenly, everything just ... tilts.

The food and the tables are gone, as are all the guests and their conversations and the dancing firelight. Only the two hosts remain, and they haven't moved from their seated positions but now they sit on the ground and they're not ancient romans any more. They're wearing tattered jeans and wife beaters in a mud floored basement lit with only bare utility bulbs. There don't seem to be any stairs or windows and it feels quite close and cramped. They're still laughing in that too hard, screw loose kind of way and still stuffing their faces and dribbling all over their shirts, but they aren't eating food anymore. They're stuffing themselves with the mud.

Just cramming it down, shoving fistfuls into their gullets while they laugh and LAUGH and flail about in the soupy muck.

Now if you think that's odd, here comes the really weird bit...

I notice that one of them has drawn a big heart in the mud and within it is written "I love unicorns", which for reasons I cannot fathom in the least sends me into a terrified frenzy and suddenly causes me to cease being the floating observer and snap into "myself" standing there with mud oozing between my toes looking down at the two hosts. They both snap around mid mouthful of mud, no longer laughing or talking and just stare at me without moving which is usually about the point I wake up.

I've woken up this way about three times since the new year and have no idea where to begin trying to determine what this interpretation of random neurons may say about yours truly other than "yo that dude ain't right in de head boss".

I'm open to alternate opinions ...

oz has their own jack thompson?

Once while playing the first AVP for PC way back in the day, my then seven or eight year old brother crept quietly into my geek lair (re: bedroom) to let me know that ma had dinner on the table. I remember I was playing the marines campaign which more or less puts you in the roll of Hudson and Hicks from the Aliens movie, running about with motion trackers (authentic sound fx!!), flame throwers, and of course the M41A pulse rifle taking out nasty aliens and generally being a bad ass. That is, when you're net getting eaten, impregnated, or slaughtered by predators.

After watching me running blind into a dark tunnel lit only by muzzle flare and being torn to shreds by digital baddies my brother piped up to deliver his message, and me being right into the game at that moment jumped and screamed so loud I scared him half to death and he burst in to tears (sorry bro).

I say all that to say; I love the AVP games. I played the hell outta the first two and I'm looking forward to this one. Good thing I don't live in Australia though, or I may be forced to steal videogames off teh intarnets, since there's no way to legally buy this game down under.

(Come to think of it, someone should sue somebody over forcing aussies to be dirty pir8s!)

Yeah apparently this douchebag has decided for the country that no one over the age of fifteen should be given the choice of what type of video game content is acceptable for they themselves to consume in order to protect the fifteen and under folks. Yeah you read that right, work that logic around in your mouth for a minute if you like but it won't taste any better. I'm surprised he hasn't banned booze, porn, and for that matter sex between consenting adults all together.

I remember how happy I was after playing through the original Max Payne (rated M 17+) to discover that as a child of the nintendo generation video games really had grown up with me, and the kind of content and narrative that I'd come to enjoy as an adult was being made available in the digital medium I'd come to love.

The highlight of all this is the response of the games creators who've basically said sorry but we're not pre-chewing this game for folks who think it's too gruesome. Go play Hello Kitty Island Adventure instead.

ticketmaster canada hates pedestrians

When I try to limit my searches to music events happening in Toronto I get Hamilton, London, Waterloo, Windsor, Orillia, and freakin Lindsay Ontario in the mix too. Apparently if you live in TO, don't have a car and want to see live music, Ticketmaster sez you a chump.

Urge to kill ... rising!

Oh yeah I forgot, today marks three years of blogging for phrostuff. See the lofty heights I've risen to? Bitching about things I can't change that don't really matter anyway. *shar*

Happy December everybody :)

adventures in wine and food

I got a call from my brother Terry yesterday saying that he would be in the city with work competing in a tasting competition. He's been cooking for a Relais & Châteaux in Cambridge for a while now and the head chef decided he was up to the task of cooking for the competition so he let me know and asked if I wanted to stop by and check it out.

Of course I wanted to see him doing his thing and check out the show, but Thursday was a VIP thing with a 35 entry fee which irritated my sensibilities. Spend perfectly good beer money on a wine show? Not on my watch! So I wandered around the back of the convention center and found a utility entrance being propped open with a broom. I snagged the broom, tossed it over my shoulder and made my way in stepping with purpose and no one gave me a second look.

Took me a bit of wandering from hall to hall to find the event, but when I finally tracked it down I entered through a utility corridor into a massive wall of curtains. Hearing a lot of chatter and smelling some tasty food I figured I had the place so I tossed the broom and pushed through the curtains ... straight into a ticket agent inspecting me dubiously. In my hoodie, tshirt and blue jeans I was definitely not dressed for this event.

Well I figured the jig was up at this point but thought what the hell I'll just act lost and bluff my way through it. When I reached the agent she seemed quite concerned and said "Well it seems you don't have your drink tickets sir, did you not receive them when you came in?"

Oh ho!

"No actually, no one mentioned drink tickets, I was expecting cash and carry."

"Oh no not on VIP night, here you are sir", she said with a smile as she tore off a sheet of TWENTY and handed it to me.

So I perused the exhibitors getting tipsy on free wine, flirting with booth girls, and generally enjoying the hell outta myself until Terry finally had a moment to call me, turns out I was in completely the wrong event! He was in the south hall and I was in the north end of the building. I'd been scamming free food and booze for almost an hour and I still have absolutely no idea what event I actually attended.

Fortunately he came up to find me, his chef whites clearing the way for him handily, and brought me to the correct venue. They had finished the tasting and were cleaning up while the judging went on, so we hung out a bit and chatted with some of the other staff he works with.

Found out today he placed second in Ontario, not too shabby methinks. Good night, free booze, and fine accolades. Can't beat that with a stick!

memory fail

A conversation between me and a friend after a night of fun and shenanigans ...

A, Buddy [3:22 PM]:
fakkkk u were hammered last nite

Me [4:13 PM]:
yeah I was pretty late getting in today.

A, Buddy [4:14 PM]:
uh oh...

Me [4:14 PM]:
Was massively gooned tho.

Me [4:14 PM]:
Went to the done right inn after I left here.

A, Buddy [4:14 PM]:
i know

A, Buddy [4:14 PM]:
I was there too

A, Buddy [4:14 PM]:
LOL

Me [4:14 PM]:
oh yeah?

Me [4:14 PM]:
hahah

A, Buddy [4:14 PM]:
ha... you called me and said you were at wide open but I found you walking on the street in a mad hunt for cigarettes

A, Buddy [4:15 PM]:
then tried goign into horseshoe but got kicked out

A, Buddy [4:15 PM]:
then ended up done right inn for a few beers

Me [4:15 PM]:
We got kicked out of the horseshoe?

A, Buddy [4:16 PM]:
haha yeah.. they said u were too drunk

Me [4:16 PM]:
hahah

Me [4:16 PM]:
they were prolly right.

A, Buddy [4:16 PM]:
they asked how much u had been drinking and u said "non of ur fuckin business"

Me [4:16 PM]:
rofl

Me [4:16 PM]:
Which is the correct answer of course.

A, Buddy [4:16 PM]:
I thought the bouncer was knock u out so I got us out of there ASAP