bluegargantua

Hey,

So I saw Inception last night.

It was probably one of the better sci-fi movies I think I've ever seen. It draws on many of the best parts of The Matrix and Blade Runner and still manages to be its own thing.

The basic plot is that there are devices that let you (and your friends) enter the dreams of another person. As you might guess, this technology is quickly turned to nefarious ends. Leonardo DiCaprio (sporting a very unfortunate whisp of goatee), plays Cobb, the leader of a gang of thieves who invade people's dreams and steal their secrets. This isn't as easy as it looks because while the device can create a dreamscape for the dreamer, the dreamer's subconscious populates it with people -- and those sub-conscious projections eventually detect the intruders and kick them out. So the intruders have to work fast and quiet.

Cobb gets hired to plant an idea into the head of a target, a task considered nearly impossible. He assembles a crack team and sets out to stage an elaborate con game to trick the target's subconscious into accepting the new idea. Part of this involves a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream. At each level down, the mind speeds up, so what takes five minutes at level one is 5 days in level two and so on. This allows for some neat multi-dream-level story-telling that's very well handled and lets you track multiple storylines pretty easily.

The movie is chock-full of little touches where they don't try and explain every last detail of how the dream tech works (in particular it's never clear how much control any intruder has over the dreamscape), but they sprinkle in all these little, throw-away details that really convey how the whole thing fits together.

I encourage folks to get out and see this one, it's a really well-done piece of cinema.

later
Tom

Hi,

So, I've heard about people having those "taking a test but haven't prepared so I'm screwed" kind of dreams, but I've never had them. I haven't heard of "forced to demo your incomplete/broken project and getting fired for it" dream, but having one, right before I have to get up and go into work to work on an incomplete project...yeah, not helping.

Ugh. Well, let's fix a program than shall we?
Tom

Hi,

So, when the Zombiepocalypse arrives and you're trying to tell me what to do just remember:

"If you have not killed at least one zombie today, or helped someone else kill two, I don't give a damn about what you think."

I'm *really* looking forward to Left 4 Dead 2...
Tom

Hi,

So last night I went in for a sleep study. I don't snore or anything, but my wife is getting tired of poking me in the middle of the night so I'll start breathing again. So, just to make her feel better, I set up this study.

The technician wired me up and said, "So we're just going to monitor you tonight, but if you go past 60 sleep disruptions in a minute, I'll put you on this CPAP device. Anything less than that, we'll just monitor."

Yeah, sure, whatever. That sounds pretty serious and I think even I'd notice if that were happening to me.

So in the middle of the night, she comes in, wakes me up, and says "hey, we're gonna put this CPAP on you now."

Huh.

So now, aside from all the wires stuck to my head, face, upper chest and legs, I've got this nose thing on my face. This is only slightly better than the nasal airway monitor I had sitting in my nostrils up until this point, but I'm lying there thinking, "This is ridiculous. How am I supposed to sleep with this stupid thing? It makes my nose feel all constricted and suffocate-y."

And I sit there, nose twitching until the technician comes back in the morning and starts unhooking me. And I say that maybe I need a CPAP, but this thing just isn't going to cut it. I didn't sleep a wink. It's too small, the air is warm, and I really could stand to have a drink of water since my throat is all dry.

It's at this point that I actually wake up and realize I've been dreaming. I roll over and go back to sleep.

The upshot is that I'll probably be going back in the next week or two to get fitted for a CPAP of my very own. I can't really tell if I slept better with or without it and probably won't until I've been using it at home for awhile. I'm also a little annoyed that, barring some medical advance, I'll be plugging myself in most nights for the rest of my life. On the other hand, it's probably cheaper than marrying someone so they can poke me every night. :)

later
Tom

Hey,

Guess what? You actually graduated from college. Made par on the course even. So there's no reason to spend all morning dreaming about how I'm trying to finish my senior year now, at this late date. Further, the whole "waking up but not really schtick" gets old after about the third or fourth time.

Also, The Enterprise has teleporters and Imperial Star Destroyers don't, but I concur with your overall assessment that the Enterprise is toast in a stand-up fight.

In other news: Happy New Years! Only 19 days until everything is magically better again.
Tom

Urg!

I haven't actually seen any of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along, but you people have been chatting it up so much that last night I had a homoerotic dream involving Neil Patrick Harris.

Now, as far as homoerotic dream guest stars go, NPH is certainly a good choice but still...

Also:

Dear My Subconscious,

There is no way that any one member of the Golden Girls, or even all of them collectively, would have that much porn. Certainly, not that much porn on those particular fetishes. Also, Golden Girls? Maybe we should just stick to what you pick up from the Internets.

later
Tom

Hey,

There were zeppelins in my dreams last night. So that's totally a win.

In other news, I had a pretty darn good weekend and a traumatizing idea for next year. :)

later
Tom

Hey,

This morning I had a really intense dream where our house had been burglarized. But the thieves didn't actually take anything, they sort of re-arranged, organized, and cleaned up the house. Oh and they cut the power...after using my computer to download a lot of porn. They left a note about taking a bunch of bonds, but since I don't keep financial instruments like that lying around the house, I figured Annie would be sad.

Aside from leaving the door open and cutting the power...I kinda wish they'd come back every so often. The place was really nice.

So when I finally started awake and realized that I need to get going in order to make it to work, the experience of interacting with a house that had been "burglarized" was a little odd. It took me a bit to get out of dream space. Also -- totally forgot my lunch.

Also? Just because you can turn your horses into young women, it doesn't mean that their mental faculties get a full upgrade. In the dream, they were giving "pony rides" to young kids but weren't too happy about it...

"It's not easy to carry you guys around like this. Why don't you kids carry me for a change?"
"But I'm only six!"
"Big deal *I'm* six and I've been able to carry other people around for years!"

later
Tom

Hi,

So in my dream last night, I'm watching this nature show and there's this chimpanzee who's picking on this other, smaller monkey (not a chimp, a monkey of some kind). The monkey, however, has a clever defensive strategy. The monkey eats a lot of these grub-like caterpillars. So when the chimp comes around, the monkey grabs a bunch of caterpillars and starts dumping them on the chimp. Being covered in sticky, writhing bugs that will be a bitch to groom out completely freaks out the chimp and he runs away.

Good going monkey!
Tom

Hey,

So I had this dream last night where America had an army about the size of Switzerland's (or maybe Togo's -- someplace small with not much army). The stuff it did have was pretty high-tech, state-of-the-art, but we didn't have very much of it. Maybe not even enough to completely defend the country from attack.

What we *did* have was Hollywood. So we'd stage all these broadcasts with the full power of Hollywood special effects so that it *looked* like we had a huge military that was everywhere. We'd invade countries with 5 guys and a tank and people would think we had several battalions in place.

It'd be a fun concept for a short game. I'm thinking PTA, but I've got PTA on the brain a lot recently.

later
Tom