Nazrax

Cleaning the duplex
I'm working at our duplex with some other people, cleaning it out and doing some maintenance in preparation for new renters to move in. I'm talking with someone about which side we used to live in and why we lived in that side, and I tell them the story. Now I'm going through boxes of appliances with long wires, and my wife says the previous renter called and said that she'd forgotten something with a red wire, asking for us to return it to her. I dig some more and finally come across something with a red power cord.

Snakes at a campground
I'm walking around at a campsite. We've just arrived, and I'm making sure there's no dangerous wildlife. I'm especially on the lookout for snake tracks - I have an app which can identify what kind of snake left a track. So far, I've only seen tracks left by snakes that are safe. Now I'm on some trails a little further away, and I'm seeing snakes lying on the trail. Unfortunately, the app can't identify snakes, only snake trails, so I have no idea if they're dangerous or not. I've heard rumors that there are dangerous snakes in this area, so since I can't identify what these are I'll have to tell the kids to be extra-careful.

Now I see an ambulance pull up to a nearby house. Now I'm talking to an old man and ask him if the ambulance is snake-related, but he tells me it's not. He goes on to tell me a story about killing a rattlesnake during a large party. He says that someone took a video, and I ask him to send it to me.

Bowling alley check-out
I'm standing at the counter in a large bowling alley waiting to check out. I've got a stack of membership cards - one card for each person in my family - and I'm waiting for the clerk to finish up another task. Now I'm talking to him, saying that I only come to this bowling alley in the summer because they offer such a great out-of-school plan; but I go to another one during the rest of the year even though it's not nearly as nice because it's so much cheaper. I hand over my cards, and there's some confusion about whether I had multiple lanes or not and whether or not this discount membership lets me have more than one.

Fragments
I'm outside tagging along with a friend. I follow him onto a conveyor belt, but somehow we get separated and I end up somewhere I don't want to be.

I'm deep inside an enemy fortress, and I see some guards patrolling in the next room.

Yet another bathroom dream
I'm in a huge, fairly crowded bathroom. Dual sinks are in front of me, a wall is to my right, and a door is behind me. A long hallway extends to my left, and it Tees back to the right just past the sinks. Beyond the T is another door. Everything is very white.

There's a thin layer of water on the counters and floor. I need to wash my hands, but I'm holding an armful of clothes and there's nowhere I can put them that they won't get wet. As I'm trying to figure out what to do, a janitor calls through the door that's further away from me asking if anyone's in here. She quickly realizes that there are lots of people in here, but she calls out that she'll wait for me - calling me by name! I don't understand why she'd pick on me specifically, or how she even knew that I was in here. Now I realize it's someone I know*, which explains how she knows me but not how she knew I was here. Now I'm talking to someone about her father, though it takes me forever to remember that his name is LH* (which, IRL, it isn't.). He died while she was engaged and never got to see her married (not IRL).


Counseling center
I'm driving around outside the building with the bathroom. I pass more than one entrance, each with its own large sign above the doors, and I realize the whole structure is broken up into multiple counceling centers, each with its own focus (e.g. one for moms, one for dads), but all run by the same people. After rounding the building, I find myself slightly lower down and at a dead-end. I'm not sure how that geography worked, but I know I'll have to turn around to get out.

Helping a coworker
I'm in my cube working with a coworker who has a terrible hunchback. I've talked to him online for years, but this is the first time I'm meeting him in person. He's having build problems, and I suggest using Git's bisect to track them down. He's familiar with the idea but has never used bisect before, so I walk him through it. Eventually, he thanks me and leaves. I check the time and see it's past time to head home, so I immediately shut down both computers and head out.

Snack time
I'm in some combination of pantry and kitchenette. I grab some chocolate chips, then some little candy bars, and put them in the front pocket of my church shirt. The pocket bulges, and I hope no-one notices.

Martian building
I'm looking at a building on Mars. For a building on another planet, it's really pretty boring, just a rounded cube shape, kind of an off-white in color. I know that something needs to be cut away from the outside. Now I'm looking at it again. The modifications have been made, and there's a bluish force-field running down the middle of the structure along with sensors which can tell when someone's about to reach it and turn it on and off.

Fragments
Something about Chef (configuration management) recipes and a young woman

Something about the white van

Cuphead
I'm watching *[pu]my daughter[/pu] play Cuphead. I've never played it myself, but I've watched a couple of playthroughs on Youtube, so I'm surprised to see that she's fighting a boss I've never seen. My wife walks in with a round, grilled, open-faced sandwich. It looks kind of strange, but it also looks really tasty.

Car problems
I'm in the driver's seat of my gray van, in a wooded place. The car is stopped, and I know it's died. Now I'm in a bright white reception area talking to an older woman behind a desk, going through the process of borrowing something to get my car back up and running. Now I'm in the same reception area, but the woman is sitting at another desk and working at a computer desk with her back to me. I notice a stack of board games on the her desk, and I'd love to ask her about them since I'm not familiar with any of them and I love new board games. I'm in the middle of talking to a younger man about my borrowed tools. He praises me for being so on-time with my payments. I think this is kind of odd - don't most people pay on time? - but I let it drop. Now we're talking about the actual car problems and how the tools were used. He keeps asking me questions, but he gets impatient when I try to give him the background so he can understand my story.

Group outing
I'm in a large room with a group of people. We're all getting our coats and gloves on, getting ready to go outside. Now we're all dressed. As we're heading out, I notice a urinal by the door. I realize it would be nice to relieve myself, but there's no way I'm going to do it here. Now we're outside walking through a wooded area. I help someone do something with some rope that's fallen off of something.

Tony's new tablet
I'm watching some kind of meeting. Lots of people are croweded into a room looking at a couple of people up front. One of the men up front gives a cheap knock-off tablet to the other man - Tony Stark (I know it's him, even though it doesn't look anything like him). It's a gag gift, so everyone laughs, and Tony handles it well. The man gives Tony the manual, making sure to point out the Grafiti reference on the back of the manual, and everyone laughs again.

Prison pondering
I'm climbing out from under a loft bed, climbing across a huge mound of blankets and pillows. I'm thinking about a guy in prison I'll be seeing later in the day. He's supposed to be in for thirty years, but people have been trying to convince him that he's only been in for twenty and that he's in for a total of forty, and he's going to ask me to tell him what I know. I'm not sure how I'll respond. I start thinking about what I'd do if I were in prison for forty years. I can't imagine the despair and hopelessness one must feel. I finally extricate myself from under the bed and walk around it.

Wax's shootout
Wax is in a shootout. He's injured, out of metals, and trapped in a building. He finds some artifacts which grant abilities when held. He finds one which grants extra Investiture if he's injured. Holding it, he steps outside, gets shot, then steps back inside. Now that he's holding more Investiture, he looks through the artifacts trying to find the one which will turn him into a Bloodmaker.


Curtis, England
I'm in England, in a place called Curtis. My wife and I are walking along a wooded road, talking. We hear thunder, and she makes a comment about its cardinal direction. I look skeptically at her, and she's offended. I stop to think about it and realize she's probably intuiting that, since thunderstorms usually roll in from the north, this one is probably north of us too. Since we're walking on a winding path in the woods and can't see any landmarks, I can't think of any other way she could have known what direction it's in.

Now we're talking to Mr. Curtis, the localc pastor, and I realize the town must have been named after him. We tell him that my mom is moving back to England and ask him for a good recomendation of what church she can go to. We talk about how hard it is to switch from driving on the right to driving on the left.


Outside a club
I'm in a cafe-style restaurant sitting at a small circular table across from my wife. We're under some kind of balcony, near a column. The counter is off to my left. Looking at it, the wall behind it is massive, going up higher than the balcony lets me see. At first, I think the place is a theater, but it dawns on me that we're actually sitting outside a strip club. I see a huge sign on the wall advertising what's inside, but I can only make out part of it since most of it is blocked by the column. Eventually I move so that I can read the sign, and sure enough, it's advertising a strip club.

From my new perspective, I can see the side of the building. Each level has a door and a walkway connecting it to stairs. One of the doors opens and a young woman, dressed in normal street clothes, comes out.

Now my attention is back on the ground floor. I see a line forming to the left of the counter and going through a large doorway. Looking more closely, I see that the doorway is actually the entrance to the women's bathroom. Weird. My wife explains that they converted the women's bathroom into a second entrance since the main entrance was so clogged and no women ever come here.

Now I notice that some people are sitting down at the table we were previously at, but we left our stuff there. I go to collect it, telling the people they're welcome to sit there.


Fixing a lightswitch
I'm in a room with Alex. He's trying to fix a light switch, but he's having trouble. He leaves for a minute and comes back with more tools, including a saw-on-a-pole. It's way too large to be in here, and he nearly hits me with it as he's turning around. I hear someone on the stairs, and a maintenance/handyman comes in with even more tools.


Big FedEx truck
I'm walking along a road with someone else, and we see a tractor-trailer FedEx truck towing a small trailer. I'm bemused, and my companion explains that FedEx has a budget freeze, so they can't buy any new trucks; but they have more deliveries than ever, so they're having to send out large trucks instead of their traditional smaller trucks.


Fragment: Crazy girl's bedroom

Customs problems
I'm in line to go through customs. I'm going to be leaving England to come home. Thankfully, the line is short. Customs is just a guy sitting at a table - it's amazingly stress-free. I think the customs guy looks familiar, but I can't place him. Now I'm at the table and I realize I don't have my card out. I apologize and dive into my backpack, pulling out the cards from its card pocket. He's very laid back and doesn't mind at all. I root through the cards, but my passport isn't there. I sheepishly apologize again and say I'm going to go look for it. He still doesn't seem to mind at all, and he suggests that, if I can't find it, I could just become a citizen. I tell him that Mom is British, but that she never felt comfortable with a dual citizenship, but thanks for the advice. I note that he's wearing a Fitbit, but it's one I've never seen before: it looks like a large silver men's watch.

Now I'm back in my hotel room. As I start looking around for the card, a couple of women enter the room dressed in a casual uniform. They explain that it's Tuesday, so all the rooms get cleaned. I ignore them and keep looking around, especially in a stack on top of the little fridge in the room. Now I'm holding a long orange extension cord and looking out my open window towards the pool below. I think about throwing it down, but I refrain because I don't want to hit anyone. Now I'm in some kind of break area. My sister-in-law is heating up some pizza, and I realize I'm really hungry. The customs agent from before is also there, and he offers me a piece of fish he's just pulling out of the toaster oven. I ask him if he's sure, and he practically shoves a piece at me. It's the largest piece of breaded fish I've ever seen - it looks like a misshapen football.


Guild castle
I'm approaching what looks like a (small) modern recreation of a medieval castle. All the stones are black - it looks very ominous. Now I'm inside, in a small room, listening to people outside. It seems this is the guild house for some kind of gaming guild. Now I'm doing something with cards.


Fragment: The side of a craggy gray mountain.

Penny Arcade
I'm reading a Penny Arcade strip showing a video game character wandering into and through a dry, desolate land. The guy controlling the character (not sure if it's Gabe or Tycho) is constantly sneaking, rolling, dodgeing, etc, and is very proud of himself. The other guy is mocking him for it, since there's no-one to hide or run from, and special moves consume more water than usual. In the final panel, the character has died of dehydration, the mocker is even more smug, and the player is trying to make excuses that it was worth it anyway.


Collaring a bird
I'm outside with my wife. She sees large bird up in tree and decides to put a tracking collar on it. Now I'm up on our deck, and somehow I bring the tree down (it was already looking kind of dry and in poor health) without disturbing the bird. My wife is impressed. The way the tree's fallen, the top of the tree (and the bird) are on the other side of a fence. She tries to approach the bird, but it keeps backing away. It's an odd-looking bird - very large, with a long neck. I think it may be a vulture, but I'm not sure. Eventually she gives up and gives me collar, suggesting that I grab a couple of kids and get them to help by cornering it. Unfortunately, it's still early in the day, so they haven't gotten up yet. I get them up, but then I have a better idea: instead of trying to corner it (which probably won't work, since it could fly away), I decide to try to bride it instead. Now I'm holding a Toaster Strudel (wow, it's probably been a couple of decades since I've had one of those), but my wife quite firmly says that I shouldn't do that. I don't want it to go to waste, so I eat it, and it tastes really good. Now I'm back outside with the bird. I try to approach it even more slowly than my wife did, but it doesn't matter: it still backs away from me.

Standardized test
I'm with my parents, sitting at a table in a huge room, waiting to take the 9th grade end-of-year standardized test (even though I'm an adult). Earlier, I saw some of my other friends (including PS), though I don't see them now. I need the test results for something I'm applying for, though I think it's pretty silly. I'm fairly confident in my abilities - after all, I'm a college graduate, so 9th grade stuff should be easy - but what if there's something taught in 9th grade that I've forgotten because it's completely useless? As I'm waiting to be called back to the test, waiters come around to the tables. Some of them are carrying plates and silverware while others are carrying the food, some kind of shrimp/something/something combo. It actually looks pretty tasty, and I look forward to trying it.

I happen to turn around and am surprised to see that the entire room is empty except for us and the table in the corner next to us (the only table I can actually see without turning around). People start filing back in, and I realize I missed the call to use the bathroom before the test starts. I realize my bladder is already uncomfortably full, but it's too late now. I reason that, unlike these kids, I'm an adult, so I can deal with it!

I'm still in the large room, and I'm now looking at a form covering basic information. It asks me some questions about my environment, talks about requirements for getting things initialed, then says I need to initial my neighbor's form and get my own form initialed by my neighbor. I add an asterisk near the top of my page, then trade initials with a girl sitting next to me.

Now I'm in another room sitting at a long table and starting the real test. The first questions have to do with my "disobedience" in not going with the rest of the large group to the bathrooms. I try to defend myself by saying that I didn't see or hear anyone saying to go. One lady takes a hard line, but another defends me. Now I'm onto another section of the test. Each question has a whole list of possible answers, and I have to check any or all of them which I believe are correct. The first question asks about "Christians killed." The possible answers are all pretty bizarre; some are names, some are numbers. I ask a proctor for clarification but don't get anything useful. I end up choosing ones that sound right (I remember checking 170,000 among others). Now I'm onto some simple math questions, which I breeze through. I laugh at the question about calculating the CIT of an angle (dream-me thought that CIT was just another trig operation ...). After finishing all of the questions, I take a quick look over them, to make sure everything looks right, then turn it in.

Now I'm walking with a male proctor. We enter the aviation museum / base, walk past the gift shop, and go through a guarded door. The guard lets me pass without question since I'm with the proctor. Now I'm sitting down looking at the test results (my parents are there too). Each page of the test flashes up quickly on a screen, and it's hard to see what's right, what's wrong, and what my score is. As best as I can tell, I get the first two pages (basic questions and Christian deaths) wrong, but everything else is correct. At one point, a lady stops the presentation to go into detail about a page asking about a stone with a fish on top of it. Once it's all over, it displays my final score of 100%, which I find odd since I got at least two questions wrong. Oh well.


Space game
I'm playing a game (looks like Astroneer) in which I'm controlling a guy in a space suit running around on a barren planet. The gravity is very low, and he's able to jump a long way. Eventually, I come across a HUGE building. Getting closer, I can see that it's in extreme disrepair. It almost looks "shattered," and I expect that the slightest touch will probably bring the whole thing crashing down. Looking through some windows, I see what I believe is a glowing portal. I can probably use it to travel to another planet - if I can get to it without collapsing the whole place. Even if I can use it, it would probably destroy the building in the process, so it would be a one-way trip. Now three other people are near me, and we're talking about the game. I love games like this which have a shared, procedurally generated, semi-private persistent world. As we're talking about the almost-destroyed building, one of the players mentions that equipping a pair of <things> on my backpack and harvesting the terrain will occasionally fling me to a nearby planet. I don't like relying on randomness, but it seems to be my best option, so I decide to give it a shot.

Now I'm looking at a map of the solar system. The planet I'm on is colored white while unexplored planets are gray. White arrows point from my planet to others which are currently reachable. I start jumping around, going from planet to planet. I can't control where I go - I follow one of the arrows at random - but I hope that I'll be able to explore the whole system before too long, or to find a more reliable method of transport. I happen across a function which simulates where a space ship would take me - I can move around a straight line, and it highlights all the planets it's above - and I realize that there must be a way to build a spaceship (otherwise why would this function exist?).


Hoarder cleanup
I'm working outside my house. There are piles of old, broken stuff everywhere - it seems the previous owner was a hoarder. I've got other people working with me, and so far we've managed to pile things up well enough to make paths between the piles. We're working near a tall fence with a closed gate, and the lighting is poor.


Travel schedule
I'm trying to make a travel schedule for going to England. I think the trip will probably be nine days, since we'll probably be gone for two weekends plus the days in-between (it seems a shame to "waste" "free" vacation days over the weekend). As I think more about it, I realize that's probably not realistic; instead, we'll probably be flying out on a Saturday morning and returning the following Saturday evening so we have all day Sunday to recover before having to go back to work on Monday.


Controller configuration
I'm watching a couple of people flying characters over a kind of park area (trees overhead, walkways and fountains). One of them is using my Steam Controller, and he's complaining that I did a poor job setting it up for this game, since some of the controls aren't mapped. He ends up opening a gate by the expedient of sending his character ramming into it. Next to him, another guy is playing with a traditional controller. Supposedly he's doing better, but he's pushing buttons and moving hand positions faster than I can follow. The clicking of his controller buttons sounds like machine gun fire.


Dangerous swim
I'm moving through a place with many fairly narrow (20-30 feet) strips of water, then land, then water, then land. I've just started swimming through some water, and somehow I know there's a shark down below me. I hope that he stays deep and doesn't come up near the surface. As I look down, I see a red "x-ray" outline of a fisherman. At first, I think he must be in the next body of water, but I quickly realize the angle is wrong for that; he must be down under me somewhere. Now I'm on land, well past where I was before, and I approach a huge hole in the ground. I realize the fisherman is down there somewhere and start to look for a safe way down.


Fragments:
A mountain road

Mixed-up clothing

Bowl pastry
I'm having a large get-together at my house. People are milling around, talking. The food is ready, so I call everyone together, give thanks, then call on Jeff to tell us more about something. He grabs a red disposable paper bowl, which has baked puff pastry doming out the top, but then realizes he's holding it up-side-down. He flips it right-side-up, then explains that it's ready to eat: just cut into it and enjoy. He cuts it open, and it looks like the puff pastry is hollow. The bowl looks to be full of gravy, and something is floating in it. Looking more closely, it looks like pretzels. That looks really weird, but I'm willing to try it, since his wife is a wonderful cook. Someone else is more cautious and asks more questions about what it has in it and whether or not he should take a laxative before trying it out. I'm surprised by the question - the meal looks like it's already greasy enough ...


Inconsiderate truck
I'm driving my car. I'm at a light, waiting to go straight, when a large truck comes up beside me in the left-turn lane with its right blinker on. Other cars come up behind it, wanting to turn left, and are clearly not happy about the truck blocking their way. A couple cars go around it into lanes of oncoming traffic to make their left-hand turns; one car goes around the truck to the left, then cuts in front of all of us to turn right. Through all of this, the truck just sits there.

Now I'm driving next to a field, and I see something interesting. Now I'm driving around looking for a place to eat. I consider a burger place we've been to before, but someone else in the car has an objection to it.


Caravan communication
A group of people are spread out in a loose caravan. A guy on a bike stops at a diner for a break and gets a fax from a truck driver who's further up the road and has stopped in some kind of industrial area. Whatever's in the fax, he realizes it's important for the others in the caravan to know, so he immediately jumps back on his bike and tries to catch up with those ahead of him. Unfortunately, it's a mountain road, and he's having real difficulty.


Fragment: My son wants to wrestle, but we're in the middle of doing something else.

Bathroom wizard
A guy is in a bathroom. A second guy enters and places a "magical chain" around the door. Smoke fills the bathroom, and an image of a "creator wizard" appears. The first guy is a fighter, and he gets ready to defend himself. The second guy is a thinker, and he reassures his brother that he's just there to talk. The wizard reminds them that the spell will end if either of them is injured. The brothers start to argue between themselves about what to do.


Dog talk
Two dogs (we'll call them A and B) enter a pet store. Dog C greets them and informs them that "the master" says they need to feed the fish; it used to be C's job, but he has a new assignment now. C asks A if A remembers him, and A says he doesn't. C says that he fed A a few years ago when A's master was on vacation, and A still says he doesn't remember C. C goes into an in-depth description of his old disguise, and A recognizes him. C admits that he wanted so badly to escape that he actually put A into a shelter for a couple of nights, and he's glad the master never found it. Getting back to discussing the fish, C tells them there's no written schedule (then asks as an aside if A & B's master writes out schedules), but it's very important not to over- or under-feed the fish, since it'll kill them.


Maze
I'm wandering a maze-like place with someone else. We're looking for the guy who runs the maze. He keeps popping in and out, but we're never able to get to him. He's mastered both time and space, so the maze is nothing to him - in fact, he doesn't even realize it is a maze. We give up looking for him and try to find his assistant. We finally catch sight of him on a balcony, but it's going to be hard to get to him.


School clothing
It's school morning, and I'm helping out my wife by making sure that my kids find their outfits (and don't end up trying to wear each others' clothing). I'm in the entryway to the house, and two of my kids bring their clothes for inspection. I check over them, talking to the kids as I do so, and they look OK.


ESR's blog
I'm watching a video of ESR reading comments from his blog. He actually reads mine, so I'm pretty excited, especially since I've tried many times to get his attention but haven't ever managed before. However, I'm surprised by the name he reads off of my post, something like "NazraxWithLargeFamily." I can't believe I left out the bit about the beacons.


At church
I'm sitting in church in our usual spot. The service is starting, but none of our kids are here. AG starts to offer a prayer request, and our kids start to trickle in. Our pastor (who's standing in the back-left corner instead of centered as he should be) keeps telling them to walk down the side aisles instead of the center, but some of them forget and come down the center anyway. Bob B, sitting in front of me, turns around and asks me to repeat AG's request, since the kids distracted him; unfortunately, they distracted me too, so I don't remember much either, other than that it had something to do with sickness.

Now the wall at the front-right reveals itself to be two huge doors. They swing open and reveal a giant (wall-sized) landscape puzzle hanging behind a giant (wall-sized) grandfather clock. The clock starts to ring half-past, but it goes on a lot longer than I expect it to. The hammer starts to miss the bell and instead repeatedly hits the puzzle behind. After a few strikes, the puzzle falls apart.

Now the service is over and I'm talking to our pastor. I offer him suggestions, something about boom mics.


Fragments:
Noisy horse-men.

While driving along a road, I see something made from stone and know that it came from across the street; it's a parking lot now, but it used to be a quarry.

I'm walking in a large house.

Fragments:
I've finally finished laying out the tiles in my shower, and I'm smearing grout in the gaps between the tiles.

I grab my portable USB powerpack.

Hitman:Sniper
I have a first-person, top-down perspective of playing Hitman:Sniper in Zombie mode. I'm playing Expert, hoping to get more achievements. I find a trick that makes the zombies mill around instead of heading straight for Ben and use it to build up a huge crowd, then fire an explosive round at them. Unfortunately, my aim is terrible: I hit right at the edge of the crowd, so half the shot is wasted and only a few zombies go down. Now I'm protecting a second point and try the same trick, but again I only take down a small handful instead of the large crowd.

Now I'm standing at ground level preparing to defend a third spot. I get in an argument with an obstructionist sheriff, but I don't back down and eventually he gives in. A friend congratulates me on how well I handled him. I happen to look down at the ground and realize I'm just a few inches away from standing in a large ant hill and hurriedly move away, checking my leg to make sure that none of them got on me.

Now I'm back to a top-down perspective, looking down at the hallways in a school. Zombies are packed close together, trudging through the hallways, but my explosive shot hasn't recharged yet and I'm almost out of time. I decide to use an attractive shot to cause a traffic jam and prevent them from continuing forward, but it doesn't work right. Now they're spilling out from the hallway into a large garage and then outside. I finally manage to get the shot off, but only as the last few stragglers are exiting the garage. I can't believe what an opportunity I wasted. This should have been amazing, but instead it ended up being an incredible disappointment.

Now I'm walking around a house on some amazingly green grass. I know that my poor performance means I'm going to lose my wife and daughter; I curl up on steps leading up to a tree house and start to cry bitterly, waking myself up.


New game
I'm helping my wife order a puzzle game for the kids - something about "contraptions." Now I'm inside the game, walking along a corridor. I'm in some kind of tutorial area, and pictographs on the walls are trying to show me how to finish setup and run the initial benchmarks. I "click" the first one and get shown more detailed information, but I can't figure out how close it, since my mouse only has a single giant button. I realize the "button" is actually a cover and remove it, revealing the standard buttons. Now I'm talking with someone about how they're using early access and what the system requirements are. Now I'm watching a woman talking with a man. He captures her, but she manages to escape.


Fragments:
I'm watching a video describing the top disgusting animal encounters actors have had to put up with when making movies.

I'm getting changed to go swimming. Now I'm in the pool. The water is lower at one end than at the other; it's flat at both ends and slopes in the middle connecting the levels.

My wife is trying to get an electric company coupon for a friend for his birthday which should save him around $100. I'm amazed - how can someone use so much power that he needs to shave $100 off of his bill?

House hunting
I'm house-hunting with my family. We're walking around a nice single-story house, and I like it a lot. I'm looking around the property trying to figure out how our dog would do here. The back yard is completely fenced in, but the front yard isn't. I think that it may be possible to link the fencing with the house to create a fenced-in back yard; I really like the idea, since I can't trust him without a fence or a leash, and I'd love to be able to throw things for him to fetch (it's a large back yard). Now I notice that the front yard is actually fenced in all the way except for the driveway, and I think that maybe adding a gate to complete it wouldn't be a bad idea. Looking around more, I notice that every house in the neighborhood seems to be completely fenced in except for the driveways; unusual, but whatever. Now he walks up to me carrying something in his mouth; looking more closely, I see that it's a dirty bowl with some bits of sewing in it; I recognize it as my wife's stuff, so I call to her.

Group camping
It's night, and I'm walking around our group camp site. I see our group's leader by the fire circle working on getting a fire started. As soon as he gets it started, he stands up and declares that it's time for bed. I'm surprised - why build the fire if it's bed time? I walk up to him to ask him. Now I notice the restrooms are just behind him and I excuse myself. Now I'm in the bathroom and find a wet towel - weird. Now I'm back outside talking to him again. We talk some more about other things, including music. We look at something on our phones. Now I ask him about breakfast, saying that I really need it by 7AM. He laughs, saying that he's not even going to be awake by then, let alone have breakfast ready.

The warehouse
I'm in an empty warehouse - all I can see is bare concrete floor and walls. Looking up, I see that it's actually got a few stories above me, and I can see firemen spread out doing something (there's no fire that I can see). Their leader is near me, and he looks like Ghostbuster's Peter Venkman. Looking around more, I see items that weren't there before, and any time I focus on one I get a kind of floating pictorial bubble giving me more information about it. I discuss population with someone (I jotted that down in my overnight notes, but I have no idea what it means.)

Reindeer-men
I'm walking around in what I know to be a game. I'm in a residential neighborhood. All of the houses have large yellow and black signs outside. Each sign has the same list of possible content that can be found in a house, and lines which are applicable to a house are checked. The houses differ significantly in what they list, but they all seem to have "Reindeer" checked. Now I'm inside one of the houses. The light is very dim, and it's creepy. I walk around looking for reindeer. I don't see any, but I hear an occasional clip-clop from elsewhere in the house. As I'm walking through something like a living room, a reindeer-man comes around the corner. He's tall, wide, and very muscular, and he seems enraged. His eyes are wide and red, and he snarls as he walks towards me. I take a moment to gape at it, then turn to flee, only to find another one right behind me. I'm trapped! I punch the one blocking my escape, even as I know it's completely futile. He punches me and I go down.

Now I'm back outside walking through the neighborhood with my parents. My father asks if I can scroll the console back to the top - he says there was a message that looked interesting but it disappeared before he could properly read it. I try the traditional shift+page up, and it works. I can see the console text hovering in front of us, though part of it is hidden by the branches of a tree. He somehow zooms in on the text he's interested in, pulling it towards us and making it much easier to read. It says something about using "svn group" to preserve local changes. He has no idea what that means, so I explain that - if my guess is correct - the game automatically checks out the latest versions of files, so any local modifications will normally be overwritten, so if you want to modify anything and have it "stick" you have to block the auto-checkout with this command.

Post-apocalyptic corruption
I'm watching a group wandering through a post-apocalyptic city. Most of the buildings are burnt out, and there's large rubble everywhere. The leader of the group is telling the others how his own wife was corrupted: growing larger, skin turning gray, losing control of herself. It turns out that he's been infected as well and has been suppressing it, but he finally loses the battle and begins transforming, groaning that he can't hold it back any more. He gains size and muscle, but he gains an almost golden color. Now he's wearing loose white robes, and his muscular arms and 6-pack are clearly visible. He tells the group that they must declare allegiance: either to him, to his wife, or to "the twins." Now I see that there are four groups, and he's displeased, saying that there can only be three and that the groups must battle until one of them is destroyed. The smallest group turns to flee.

Strange shower
I'm taking a shower in a small bathroom. There's no shower stall - the water just pools on the floor. I start to splash around, enjoying myself, then stop because I don't want to disturb my wife. I also realize that there's only a very small lip under the door and I don't want to flood the hallway.

Running with John
I'm with John O and my second daughter in the lobby of a movie theater. Everything is very blue, and there are tables scattered around - it seems it doubles as a diner. My daughter hasn't seen a movie in a theater before and asks how it works. I explain that we have to wait around while the current movie plays, then go in and wait for the next one to start. Now we're sitting at one of the tables, eating while we wait.

Now John and I are crossing the parking lot. We're talking about "that weird taxi guy" who always hangs around the Atlanta airport. He does a great job and is worth seeking out, but sometimes you have to walk a long way to find where he's parked. Now we're walking along a sidewalk, and I realize that my daughter is missing. I turn to run back towards the theater, but John runs much faster than I. I yell after him to pace himself. He slows down, gets behind me, and starts pushing me. I end up running much more slowly than before since my balance is being thrown off. I ask him to stop pushing, so he passes me again. I'm able to regain my balance and speed back up. We're running downhill now, and I end up going really fast (though still slower than John).

Eating garlic
I'm driving home with my son. I realize I'm hungry and look around to see if there's anything to eat in the car. I see that the dashboard's cell phone holder has a garlic bulb sitting in it. As much as I'm not in the mood for raw garlic, I am really hungry, so I manage to peel off a few cloves and start trying to peel them one-handed (I'm still driving, after all). I hope I have a while before my wife gets home since I'm sure my breath will stink for a long time.

Now I'm pulling into the driveway and am surprised to see that stuff is scattered everywhere inside the garage and on the driveway. I park near the top and we head inside. She's not here, so I start hunting down some real food.

Fragment: A brilliantly white monument is standing in a grassy patch in the middle of the road.

VPN Presentation
I'm standing in front of a group of my coworkers preparing to give a presentation. My first Powerpoint slide is already on the screen. Before starting the presentation, I open with a brief prayer. My first slide covers why we should be using Linux. I describe how much Linux support has improved over the last few years, highlighting how easy it is now to use a presentation remote to switch slides. Now I've moved onto my main topic, how to use a dual VPN. I briefly discuss the benefits of a dual VPN solution then spend a few more minutes talking about security implications. On a new slide I show the results of running a few varieties of Rainbow Crack against both singe- and dual-VPN solutions. The dual solution is actually slightly weaker (averaging about 30%, with some algorithms as bad as 50% and others with almost no difference). Even so, the weaker security shouldn't actually make a difference in normal day-to-day workloads.

Now I'm answering questions from my coworkers. One of them starts rolling around on the ground in a strange attempt to demonstrate how a particular crypto algorithm works; when everyone stares at him dumbfounded, he just returns to his seat, but a few minutes later he jumps up saying that he's solved the problem.