General

Heath Ledger dies…again

Another dream from last night:

I am on what appears to be a movie set but they are not shooting at the moment. Or perhaps it’s just a ranch because there are horses. And a Spanish galleon. It makes sense, because it’s a dream.

I am on the galleon with someone who is showing off a little swordsmanship. He recites a line from the script that I can’t precisely recall but it was a taunt something along the lines of, “Do you want to brown your pants?” Colorful, as they say. The part was being played by Brian Doyle and while there are a number of Brian Doyles on the Internet Movie Database, I don’t think this guy was any of them. No idea where the name came from.

After the swordfighting demonstration, I then look over to another man, this one holding the reins of a horse. In retrospect I think it was supposed to be Johnny Depp and this was the set for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie but instead it was Heath Ledger, my first dead dream celebrity.

Heath was going to show off something or other but the horse’s reins got tangled up and it began freaking out and thrashing violently. Heath was standing beside it and could not extricate himself from the reins. By the time he was freed he was laying prone on the ground and making unpleasant facial expressions, a waving hand indicated possible back injuries. When next I looked he was propped up against a nearby fence with two girls looking over him. One was about ten, the other in her teens.

I distinctly recall one of them saying to him, “Please don’t bleed like that” at which point blood started oozing from his nose and mouth. This, understandably, upset the girls and they began wailing as Heath Ledger expired. Again.

Acrophobia on an alternate world Davie Street

I’ve been remembering a lot of my dreams lately for whatever reason, enough so that I may actually do some research to retain them even more than I do now.

Last night I was in a typical alternate world dreamscape, this time at a huge outdoor theater improbably constructed near the intersection of Denman and Davie Street. The theater was open but did have a roof to provide shelter from the elements. The featured show was a bunch of old men singing in front of an artificial waterfall. Where this bit came from I have no idea. At the end of the performance — which actually felt more like a rehearsal, I moved out of my seat and headed down toward the stage. The seats were a weird kind of jumble that only makes sense in dreams and I found myself inadvertantly blocking the way. This woman standing opposite me seemed to offer a solution, for lo! We were both actually standing on a lift that she could operate.

She did so and we rose up and above the crowd. I was perhaps inclined to offer my thanks when she continued to raise the lift higher than necessary. I am not especially keen on high places so I noted this fact to her in the hope that she would stop. She did not. I then raised my voice to a level one might call “screaming”. My words to her were as such: “Lady, I’m afraid of heights! Let me down!” I continued this plaintive request at maximum volume but she gave no reaction, as if she was utterly deaf or cruelly indifferent.

I should further illustrate the scene by noting the platform that I was on was barely big enough to contain me and it lacked anything to hold onto save for a railing along the front which I flung my arms over, hoping to not plunge onto a singing old man some hundred feet below. When the lift finally reached its maximum height — and that height was impressive indeed — the woman’s hearing seemed to suddenly return to normal and she brought the lift back down.

I was not amused.

The dream broke apart at this point, the crisis ended. The loss of control is a typical theme in dreams. Perhaps I can conquer this one by standing on my tippy-toes at the edge of the Grand Canyon one day.

Time, flowing like a river

Today Eric Woolfson, the creative mind and frequent vocalist of The Alan Parsons Project, died from cancer at the age of 64.

One of the things that sucks about getting older is watching the pop icons of your youth grow old and die and 64 isn’t even old.

The first APP album I bought was Ammonia Avenue in 1984 (on vinyl, of course). I was late to the party but went back and grabbed all of their back catalog and purchased the final three albums they released after Ammonia Avenue as they came out. Woolfson wrote clean, straightforward lyrics that worked without being overly schmaltzy or cliche and his vocals had a strange elegance that I can’t fully describe with any justice.

The idea that he and Parsons might work together again — something I had hoped for — is now lost, of course, so we’ll never know what a new collaboration might have sounded like (much like Rick Wright’s death ended any chance of further work from Pink Floyd after their 2005 Live 8 reconciliation). Time to listen to Eye in the Sky again…

If you are what you read…

…then I’m a guy who jogs and likes to write.

Which would be pretty accurate.

I buy two magazines regularly: Runner’s World and Writer’s Digest. Maybe I just like magazines with apostrophes in the titles. I’ll admit having an incredibly hot guy on the cover of Runner’s World helped persuade me to take a look at the first issue I picked up but I’ve been buying it regularly since (the covers alternate male and female). It’s somewhat surprising how much can be written about an activity that consists entirely of just putting one foot ahead of the other and repeating.

Writer’s Digest is a magazine I’ve been buying on and off for many years but now that I’m writing more I can actually try employing some of their techniques and suggestions. Note: do not ever subscribe to their online newsletter. They spam your inbox like crazy trying to sell you seminars, books and probably Writer’s Digest widgets and toilet paper. I routinely archive without reading so I should probably unsubscribe at some point.

I will occasionally buy other writing or health magazines and the odd issue of Asimov’s of Fantasy & Science Fiction. What I don’t buy anymore are computer magazines (pretty much replaced by the web) and gaming magazines (also pretty much replaced by the web and most have died, besides). I lament several magazines I used to buy that went defunct a long time ago, notably The Twilight Zone magazine (which published excellent short fiction) and Marvel Illustrated, best described as “Heavy Metal without the breast obsession”. Okay, I sometimes also bought Heavy Metal because where else could you read stories where people rode astride giant penises like the sandworms of Arrakis? I also miss Omni. I wish there was still a good general interest science magazine around (no, Discover doesn’t quite do it). Mad magazine is one of the few I genuinely outgrew without even being conscious of it. They probably lost their gestalt when they began putting in real ads to pay the bills, anyway. That’s my cynical take and I’m stickin’ to tingit!

My dream (directed by Roland Emmerich)

There have been two recurring themes in dreams I’ve had since I was a wee one. The first was being chased by something — mummies, vampires, mean robots but most often vehicles and in true Killdozer style, the vehicles would always be driver-free. Two I recall vividly were a muscle car from the late 60s/early 70s that chased me down a neighbor’s driveway (I escaped by leaping onto the branch of a tree that hung over the end of the driveway), the other a giant-sized dump truck with the front bumper missing, which made it much scarier.

The chase dreams pretty much ended as an adult.

The other theme has been ferry disasters, which I’ve talked about before. Last night I had one of these dreams and as with most of them, it wasn’t really scary, just weird. I don’t recall who I was with but we were on the ferry and as usual, something goes wrong. This time it seemed like some kind of stability issue, which we noticed when the ferry began lurching to the side so severely as to nearly touch water to the passenger deck. Then, while still motoring along, the ship does not one but two complete barrel rolls. Yes, it capsizes twice. But it manages to right itself and we were apparently wearing our capsizing boots and were none the worse for the spinning. But now it was clear the ferry had to get to the terminal and dock ASAP.

The ferry starts racing along through the water and is kind of wobbly, pitching a bit from side to side. At some point I move to the front lounge for a better view ahead and we are entering a winding river-like area that doesn’t actually exist. Perhaps because of the ferry’s excessive speed, instead of attempting to navigate the serpentine path, the captain has the crew shovel more coal into the boiler and guns it toward a giant pile of smoothly-shaped rocks. Maybe it was a hill covered with rocks. Whatever it was, it was clear we were going to jump it.

The ferry hits the hill and scoots up it and out of the water, then flies off the top and soars like a wingless bird. For a few moments as the ship flies through the air we ponder what the landing will be like. But not to worry — the ferry lands upright and everyone’s okay. But not! Because the terminal is dead ahead and the ship is going way too fast! The engines are put into full reverse and the water churns furiously as we speed toward the dock. The ship slows, slows some more and then finally eases into the dock as if this was the end of a perfectly normal trip. Roll credits.

Jogging: now featuring random hate and incitement!

Today’s jog was 30 minutes. It was overcast and about 8ºC, so pretty mild comparatively. I ended up taking the gloves off for the last few laps. This means my hands were getting warm, not that I was running down and trying to punch out another jogger. The highlight was nearly twisting my ankle dodging around one of the mud pit-like corners. That would have made for a truly awesome third run back.

Someone with spray paint and an apparent loathing for authority had been busy at the adjacent playground, as you can say in the image below I captured with my iPod camera:

kc_park

(You can click for a larger version if you like. The text reads “Kill Cops”.)

A charming piece of work to greet the pre-schoolers as they climb up to the slide into anarchy! More anarchy symbols were festooned across the rest of the equipment by whatever blithering idiot did this.

I was also going to post a pic of my dirty running shoes but frankly they just don’t look dirty enough. The forecast for the week suggests drier and colder weather to come so I seem to have lucked out so far as the rain goes on my return to jogging.

When dreams go meta

Last night I had a long, involved dream that played out like a movie. There were even “shots” where the camera seemed to be tracking. From what I can recall, the story was set in some unnamed present day country that was apparently in the midst of a revolution (possible source: the coup in Honduras this past summer). Much of the city that the dream took place in was abandoned or in ruins but there did seem to be some semblance of life. I remember one part where a blind alley or tunnel opened into a plaza and there were a few men with weapons waiting for people to come through to shoot them. The people being shot were civilians, as far as I could tell.

I have an image of a woman and some children running along a street and being brought down by automatic weapon fire. Since I wasn’t in the dream I had no reaction to this, the events just kept playing out. The final part of the dream featured several men who may have been part of a resistance group. They were moving through an abandoned building that looked like it was once a hospital. It was bare of all furnishings and was dark, save for a pale blue light that washed through every room. This seemed to key in to an earlier part of the dream and I understood they were sneaking their way through to avoid being seen or captured. They went down some stairs and finally came to windows that were brightly lit by the sun. They exited onto a small street that was somehow cut off from the oppressive forces and the people here were relaxed, even happy.

The meta part of this dream came in an unrelated dream afterward. I was with friends and one was apparently using some kind of “hair solution” to grow back the hair on his head and was a bit embarrassed by the discussion, though he did in fact have a pretty good head of hair. I suddenly remembered the previous dream while in this dream and started telling my friends about it, just as I have written it out here. They weren’t particularly interested, so I stopped. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. It was odd.

CBC News: your source for inane comments from the public

Yeah, I’ve talked about this before. Like the weather, it’s a perennial subject. Today the CBC website has a story about an investigation into a rough sailing for the Northern Adventure as it weathered a vicious storm after leaving Prince Rupert, eventually having to return. Here is the first reader comment posted by someone named “justaviewer”. Note that comments are pre-moderated, which means they get screened first by CBC staff before going up:

Send Obama out there to calm the waters – after all he can walk on them can’t he?

This has pretty much become a meme on the CBC site. Find news story, make completely unrelated comment attacking personal pet issue/person. The reader who posts next is wise to this, though and calls out the practice:

And let people start blaming Gordon Campbell, Steven Harper, and the 2010 Olympics for all of this… now!

You posters on the BC CBC Message Boards are really starting to sound like a broken record. Doesn’t it get annoying repeating the same thing over and over again?

Doesn’t it get annoying repeating the same thing over and over again?

Doesn’t it get annoying repeating the same thing over and over again?

Doesn’t it get annoying repeating the same thing over and over again?

Posted by “Dude Man”. Despite the call-out, the third comment, by “lobjob”  is:

I am sure Adrian Dix will find the storm was caused by HST panic, an NDP generated condition.

I hate being cynical concerning the intelligence and thoughtfulness of the average guy but these people, I tells ya, they test me!

Damn snow (November 2009 edition)

Yes, it’s the time of year where every other post is a complaint about the weather. We are on track for a wetter than normal November and in truth it doesn’t really bother me much. However, seeing this on the mountains makes my toes scrunch up in horror.

damn_snow_nov09

Damn snow.

Of posts not written

It turns out writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days really cuts into the time you normally devote to going on about various inanities in your blog.

On the plus side, I am near 32,000 words as we hit the halfway mark, about 7,000 words ahead of the pace and I think the science in my story is probably more accurate than the science in 2012 (more on the in the next post). And mine is a horror story.