Saturday, April 1, 2006, 10:51 AM - Odd Dreams
So... I had this odd dream that I was a corporate spy who was given the task of breaking into another company's headquarters so that I could steal their financial documents. I guess the theft was going to manipulate the share prices.
Things got a little weird when I broke into the basement level through a secret tunnel. The basement was actually some sort of garishly decorated decorated apartment. No one was home, but the couch and living room recliner were bright red and shaggy. Colored strings of beads hung all over the walls. The dim lighting was bluish and I couldn't tell where it was coming from.
I left the odd apartment and the next room was some kind of interrogation booth. Three corporate goons were giving the Third Degree to some poor schlep who apparently had autism. Needless to say, the guy gave the same answer, regardless of the question asked. I got the feeling that autistic fellow didn't Care how long he was there, and probably didn't know anything that the corporates wanted to know.
I took the elevator to the top floor.I could overlook alarge auditorium in which some overpaid corporate mouthpiece was trying to convince the staff that cutting wages and outsourcing a third of the staff in NO WAY indicated that the company was in trouble was in trouble. Yeah, right.
At the top level, the files I sought were located in a nondescript brown leather brief case that had been stashed in a janitor's closet. So much for corporate security! The dream ended there, but I have to assume I would have made it out.
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( 3 / 1897 )Friday, March 31, 2006, 08:38 AM - Random Thoughts
Back when I was in college, I weighed a lean, mean 165 pounds and had a trim 31" waist. Now that I'm middle-aged, I weigh 205 and have a 38" waist. Ugh! But I decided to *do* something about it. I joined a gym.
I've been working out three times per week at the gym (2.25 miles on treadmill and some weight lifting) and I also do a 2-mile brisk walk around the neighborhood 1-2 times per week. I cut out all junk food, and I've been limiting my calories to about 1900 per day. I've been doing this for three months straight.
I don't understand why I haven't lost any weight. Now, I *have* reaped other benefits: my physical endurance has increased a lot (I used to jog at 4 MPH, and now I can do 5.5 MPH), I sleep better at night, and I don't feel fatigued during the day. I don't crave unhealthy foods anymore. My resting pulse rate is 64, down from 76. I've been able to cut my coffee consumption in half. And my clinical depression has definitely been kept in check. Finally, those cluster headaches I get every other year that lasts 30-45 days only lasted 6 days this time around. So this is quite an accomplishment.
I just don't understand why I can't get any *slimmer* when it's pretty obvious that my health is improving in so many other ways. I wonder what I'm doing wrong? It's not the end of the world, but it is somewhat frustrating.
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( 3 / 1436 )Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 07:12 PM - Stupid Criminals
Yes, indeed! I've had some real "model citizens" at work lately. But there is a *special* class of crook that I call "Buck Rogers" criminals. Why? Because they have so many charges listed against them that they would have to live to be 500 years old to serve out their sentences!
Here are my favorite "Buck Rogers" losers.
--:: A 21-year-old punk who decided to mug some guy who *used* to be his friend years ago (but had fallen out over the years). Thg victim had a whopping $5 in his wallet and no credit cards. So the felon stabbed his ex-friend in the neck with a switchblade. Amazingly, the victim survived (w/40 stitches in his neck!) Estimated maximum penalty for all six charges related to this incident: 76 years.
--:: An idiot 16-year-old decided to rob the pizza man at gunpoint -- right as the pizza man made the delivery to the house! The teen also stole the delivery man's car and cash bag ($42.00!) He also left the front door to his house open as he sped away in the stolen car. The pizza man walked into the house and called the cops (and probably ate the pizza,
too!) Total penalty: 165 years.
At least in law enforcement, the customer is always WRONG!
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( 3 / 1316 )Monday, March 27, 2006, 05:17 PM - Random Thoughts
About every two years I seem to get treated to six weeks of excruciating pain in the form of cluster headaches. Personally, I think calling this affliction a “headache” is about as much of an understatement as calling a high speed head-on car accident a “bump”. The clever nickname for cluster headaches is “suicide headaches” because the pain is so intense that it really does drive people to suicide.
For me, a cluster headache always starts the same way. It feels like there is a small knot of tissue at the very top of my nasal cavity that seems to get inflamed and then starts hurting. It sends a spike of pain into my right eye and into the teeth on the right side of my head. Then the pain spreads to my cheek and temple, then finally to the back of my neck. It takes about ten minutes to go from “no pain” to “world of hurt”.
To understand how bad the pain is, consider this: as much as a migraine hurts more than an ordinary headache, a cluster headache hurts more than a migraine by the same order of magnitude. And the headache lasts 12-18 hours at time and cycles for 4-6 weeks.
There’s only one medicine, Imatrex, that helps. It’s not a perfect pain reliever (but it makes it tolerable) and it’s both dangerous and expensive ($21/tablet).
The curious thing this time around is that my head is hurting in all the same places as a cluster headache hurts, but the pain is a lot less intense this time. On the one hand, I’m glad that it’s not giving me agony. On the other hand, I wonder what’s changed.
Maybe it won’t be so bad this time.
The last time, it was so bad that it would just make me curl into a ball and scream into a pillow.
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( 3 / 1200 )Thursday, March 23, 2006, 08:47 PM - Odd Dreams
It was one of these odd dreams that mixed the metaphysical with science fiction. Of course, that's one of my favorite combinations!
In this dream. I controlled a small fighter-ship in a really dark region of space. It seemed that a kind of "hole" had opened in space opened in space connected our Universe with a more sinister, evil universe. A dark aperature opened and a squadron of triangular black ships emerged. I fired on then with the ship's weapons, but it didn't seen to have any effect.
My engineering Construct (a type of sentient machine) had the clever idea to fire on a passing asteroid. The shrapnel ripped two alien ships to Shreds. that left about Six or seven more.
The black ships began emitting a kind of "halo" of darkness that I instinctively knew would quench a living being's life force. They closed on ship. It seemed that we were about to be consumed by the darkness.
It was at that moment that these two huge creatures appeared in space. I knew that they were composed of energy, light, and spirit. They were not solid, and yet they shore with an iridescent light that slowly strobed from blue to violet blue to violet back to blue. I knew, somehow, that these two beings weres omehow angels. they appeared like jellyfish. The "cap" part was translucent and sparkled from within. Blue and purple tendrils flowed in their wake. They were simply breathtakingly beautiful. Words cannot really describe how delicately beautiful they were.
Their light drove back the black ships and dispersed their life-draining halos. But before these angelic creatures vanished from where they came, they made the hull of my ship shine the same way they did. I knew then that I would never again fear the black. ships or their death energy.
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( 3 / 1614 )Tuesday, March 21, 2006, 09:06 AM - Cool Stuff
I've noticed that the mainstream media has this unending drumbeat against gas/electric hybrid cars. It usually goes something like this: "The gas money you save doesn't offset the price of the car. The batteries are expensive to replace. Hybrids don't get the advertised gas mileage. You're a fool if you buy one!"
Lemme tell ya: I drive a 2003 Civic Hybrid and it is by far the coolest *and* most reliable car I've ever driven. Since I own one, I'm in a position to make *informed* commentary.
Point 1: If your sole concern is having the car pay for itself, then DON'T buy a hybrid. All cars depreciate -- really quickly. No car pays for itself, hybrid or otherwise. But if you would like to use less gasoline because of the knowledge that this resource is finite and non-renewable, then you SHOULD buy a hybrid.
Point 2: Hybrid batteries are pretty expensive to replace. That's why they are engineered to OUTLAST the car. Only a handful of battery packs have been replaced worldwide, and are typically heavily subsidized by the car maker. I had the batteries tested in my car at the 90,000 mile mark; they still functioned at 92% of original capacity.
Point 3: It is true that hybrid cars *usually* don't deliver the advertised gas mileage. But regular cars don't either. This is because of a long-standing error in the EPA's testing formula. The EPA figures assume a set of "ideal" driving conditions: 75°, low humidity, a flat/smooth road surface, gentle acceleration, 50-55 mph velocity, and no use of air conditioning. If all these conditions are met, ANY car (hybrids included) will get the EPA estimate. The sad fact is that most Americans (hybrid owners included) just don't know how to drive. They slam the gas pedal to the floor when the light turns green and speed at 80 mph with the AC blasting.
Myself included.
If I drive like "Mad Max", my car gets 36 mph (still not too shabby!) But if I drive very conservatively, I get about 47 mph. On a perfect day, I've gotten as high as 52 mph! And that is truly stellar.
Other than the car being expensive, I have not a single complaint about my car. It's very quiet (thanks to the 1.3L i4 vTEC engine), powerful (thanks to the battery assist), and pretty. It has never had a mechanical failure in the hybrid propulsion system.
Of course, it also pollutes a lot less than a regular car. That's an important factor in Baltimore where we get a lot of "Code Orange" and "Code Red" daily pollution warnings each summer.
Would I buy one again? You bet! I don't know when that's going to be, however, since this car seems like it's going to run FOREVER!
Is my hybrid worth the expense? Every last penny!
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( 3 / 1187 )Monday, March 20, 2006, 08:28 AM - Odd Dreams
I had this dream that started with me running my "World of Gaianar" role-playing game. In the dream, I was describing to two players an encounter with an Illuthielite Priest (an Undead cleric of the evil god Illuthiel). But then the room vanished and was replaced by the scene I had described:
It was on the ruins of an ancient highway and it probably bordered the Deadwoods, since all the trees were twisted, blackened, leafless horrors. The stunted grasses were dry as tinder.
An Illuthielite Priest approached us. Its skin was waxy and stretched tightly over its face like a corpse prepared for the coffin. There was no spark of life in its sunken, dead eyes. It wore rusty chain mail armor and a filthy tabard that displayed the "holy" symbol of the Illuthielite faith. It had a short sword that looked to be in poor repair.
It did not speak as it attacked us, but it had some rudimentary telepathy since I was able to hear its raging hate in my mind. It hated those of the living.
I pulled out my Rosary beads and, using the Crusafix as a talisman, commanded the Priest to retreat.
It did.
When the dream ended, it reminded me of why I wish that the World of Gaianar was a real place. Sure, the Undead roam the land and terrifying monsters abound. But in that world, prayer has real power and good is on an even playing field with evil. A handful of heroes can make a lasting positive difference.
In the real world, evil almost always triumphs. Evil has all the power, money, resources, and political capital. The few good men are cowardly and impotent. There are no heroes.
I would risk having a very short life living in a dangerous world where prayer had real power.
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( 3 / 1616 )Sunday, March 19, 2006, 10:14 AM - Odd Dreams
I had an odd dream that Earth had been taken over by a race of aliens that were Xenophobic and heavy handed. They claimed to be emotionless and logical (like the Vulcans from Start Trek ) but in reality they were racist bigots with reserved demeanors. their modus operandi was to make almost everything illegal. Humans were put in ghastly prisons with long incarceration terms for even the smallest infractions. These dark Prisons were cold, wet hell holes with insufficient, contaminated food. The idea was that human inmates would die of disease and malnutrition after a few weeks of confinement. Then the captors would use this informant ion to publicly state how human. beings were innately dirty and inferior.
There was a resistance movement in the alien culture. They would use their limited resources to smuggle humans out of the death-prisons. Then they would cosmetically alter the people who they rescued in order to make then look alien (and thus exempt from the human containment laws). the members of the resistancehad these technologicalamulets that could openlocks and disable securitysystems. They were illegalto own, of course, butthe aliens rarely prosecuted their own.
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( 3 / 1676 )Friday, March 17, 2006, 08:17 AM - Dissociation & Switching
The interesting thing about exercise and dissociation is how, when I do a really intense workout, I feel like I'm shining. It feels sometimes that there's this unseen radiant energy that becomes part of me for a while. If it made a visible glow, it would be bright silver-white.
Thistle has this energy all the time. But at least I can occasionally experience it.
I wish that when I had the shining that I could fly too.
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( 3 / 1625 )Wednesday, March 15, 2006, 08:19 AM - Odd Dreams
I had this really odd dream that one of my friends from college had somehow become a kind of socialist bandit. What he would do is go into some chain store (like Target or McDonald's) and rob the contents of the safe. But instead of taking the money for himself, he would divide the cash amongst the employees. Then he would say something Socialist like, "Power to the workers!"
So in the dream, I made the tactical mistake of going to a coffee shop with him. Of course, he robbed the store and gave the loot to the employees. I cringed, thinking "they'll probably think I'm an accomplice!" Ugh.
On the way home from the "workers' liberation event", I turned on the radio and found that a different college friend was running an illegal radio station that criticized the government while singing the praises of the Socialist Bandit.
It was just so *weird*.
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