Sailing the Noosphere

1. Some sort of cartoon/live action switch thing is going on in this fragment. It takes place in a world where our superheroes are revered as vengeful and fearsome gods. Batman, with the epithet "Scientific," can swoop from anywhere to show his wrath. Superman's X-ray vision can see anywhere to reveal embarrassment and sin. The Green Lantern is a trickster god; he is shown using his powers to unwillingly jack off men at unfortunate times.

2. I'm watching Futurama. Fry is on the run for some sort of debt (notes unintelligible). He is without transportation, so the going is slow. At one point he comes across a dragon pulling a rickshaw, but the dragon is high on drugs so Fry continues on foot.

3. I play bass in a School of Rock style concert, closing with ACDC's Shoot to Thrill (sounds fantastic). Backstage, Dan C from high school shakes my hand and a number of teachers congratulate me. The teachers are talking not only of the show, but also of the insurance scam they are pulling. By burning their houses, they've made enough money to take luxurious vacations!

1. I'm at a football stadium in the desert. The Cincinnati Bengals are playing a game against an unspecified team, and I'm on the field as a Bengal's lineman pushing against the enemy offense. I actually do an OK job, and as the downs progress I get teammate support in a kind of military, "Hoo-ah!" way

2. I'm watching what seems to be a fight scene from an X-Men comic or movie taking place in a desert. The choreography is stunning, as is the skill of the mutants. The fight ends with Jean Grey drawing all the combatants towards her in a massive display of psychic power, then throwing them apart in a sphere of blue light. The Silver Surfer rides by, quipping, "And I thought I was overpowered!"

1. Mom, my brother, and I are driving around downtown Cincinnati, when I notice some interesting graffiti on the side of a tall building. Everyone gets out of the car and starts to climb the building, eventually reaching an outcrop near the tags. One is simple to interpret and just says "Rage," the other is a design that looks like two capital "A" letters that share a leg. I think that the latter symbol is the tagger's way of representing A=A, the Objectivist tenet. This is backed up when I find (and start leafing through, missing a RC) a philosophy textbook. Details afterward are fuzzy, but the conversation among the family turns to something horrible, and I remember a crushing sadness. The textbook falls and shatters as we climb down, and eventually I start to sob.

2. I'm watching a movie-style overview of an epic bike race in Africa. Things quickly go over-the-top; one bike is a robotic monstrosity, one is ridden by an ape-man who carries jungle animals with him, and one is ridden by Spiderman. Crazy hijinks ensue, but details are kind of fuzzy.

It's evening at a summer camp, and I feel incredibly bored. My brother invites me to play video games with him, so I go to the living room of our house and join. It's some sort of superhero fighting game with SNES-level graphics, and I play as Wolverine against his Hulk. The cartoons have a good level of violence, with blood flying as my Wolverine claws dig into the Hulk's skin. Eventually I get bored again and wander outside.

I find a book of idea for things to do when bored just lying on the ground. I pick it up and start flipping through (yet another failed RC). One of the ideas is shooting a watch battery with a nail to produce some sort of cool reaction; the book warns that after the 41st nail is shot at any battery, both objects are coated with a slow-acting contact poison. I proceed to idly shoot the battery 42 times, watching sparks and corrosive fluids form, then touch the damn thing. Nothing happens immediately, but in a minute or two my left arm feels incredibly numb. I look down at it, and the skin is turning a sickly shade of blue (failed finger RC). I run to the camp's bathroom, but faint out of the dream.