Nazrax

Bed @ 2245
Woke @ 0120.
Attempted BTB @ 0145 /w MILD & SSILD
Meditated, got up, went back to bed, got up, had a drink, listened to a book, back to bed, etc. Fell asleep past 4.
Woke @ 0440

Meeting with my boss
I'm in my (old)boss's office for my every-other-weekly meeting. She's finishing something up and has a few papers on her desk. They're up-side-down, but I can see long lines of highlighter on them. I have a brief thought that maybe it's paperwork for a raise, but I squash that - I got one recently from "my other boss." I have a moment of confusion, since I just had a one-on-one with "my other boss," but "remember" that he's actually her boss and I meet with both of them. She's listening to some really weird music that's making it hard to think, and I hope she'll turn it off. I see her move what looks like an ipod, but I have the odd feeling that the music isn't actually coming from it. She starts saying something about duct tape, how tempting it is, how it needs to be controlled, and I'm really confused. I think I must have missed her opening sentence and that, if I'd caught it, then everything would make sense.

She keeps going about the duct tape, and I suddenly I realize that none of this makes sense and that I must be dreaming. I do a confirmation nose-pinch and am able to breathe. I have almost no "did I do it right?" hesitation and am extremely confident that this is a dream, and I have no qualms about doing weird stuff in "my boss' office." I stand up and walk over to the wall trying to decide what to do - I consider trying to phase through it, but I know that that's a good way to get somewhere totally random, and I don't want to lose lucidity in the transition. As I'm considering, I notice that my head is closer to the ceiling than it should be. I decide to see if I can grow further, and I do - I actually get my head within a hair's-breadth of the ceiling. Everything in the room looks a bit smaller, a bit further away. I remember a task of the month, to reach into my pockets and pull out whatever's there. I do so and find only my usual setup: my right pocket has my keys and Swiss Army knife, and my left pocket is empty.

Now I recall my 3-step goal. I've done steps 1 and 2 in a previous dream, and I kick myself for not posting a new step 3 - I've never successfully banished something from a dream, and I'd intended to update it to something simpler. Oh well, I'll give it a shot. I look around for a good candidate and see some baby toys on my boss's desk, including a small blue tower filled with marble-sized balls and a couple of plastic keyrings. I decide to banish one of the keyrings. I turn around, concentrate hard on making it disappear, then turn back. They're still there, though I have the feeling the contents of the desk shifted slightly. I decide that trying to remove something when there are two of them is a bad idea. I decide to do the little tower instead, but I don't want clutter around it in case that makes it harder. I walk over and rearrange things, moving the tower to the center of her desk and leaving a large space around it. I face the wall, focus on making the tower disappear, and turn back. It's now a tiny fraction of its original size, but it's still there. I decide that if doing the behind-the-back trick won't work. I'll just forcibly will it out of existence. I stare at it, willing it to vanish, and it starts vibrating madly; then I wake up. I check for an FA, but I'm back in reality.


BTB @ 0445
Woke @ 0630 /w alarm


Fiddling with a Steam Controller
I've just received my new Steam Controller and I'm showing it off to my kids. I'd heard it was large, but it's much larger than I expected. I'm also a bit disappointed by its appearance: in photos, it was always a dark shiny black, but it's actually a kind of matte light gray. I take note of each of the inputs, noting that something right in the middle also seems off, though I can't put my finger on what's not right. To the left is the fake D-pad - I try it out, and it feels like a normal D-pad. I look again, and it's not circular but is actually D-pad shaped, and that confuses me. Right in the middle of the pad is a tiny clickable Steam button. There's a circular pad on the right and another one in the lower-right, partly on the grip. A trigger button just to the right of the D-pad surprises me - I have no idea how you could press it without really contorting your hand. Triggers are all over the back, both on the main body and on the grips. Now the D-pad has changed, and it's a large layout of tiny red thumbsticks laid out in a three-tiered pattern: the outer tier has them in up/down/left/right positions, the middle tier has them for diagonal movement, and the inner tier is back to up/down/left/right. I note something in the software controls which allows each thumbstick to function independently, or you can lock each one to send only the direction corresponding to its position (so the left stick could only send 'left,' no matter which way it was being pushed). So far, I haven't actually plugged the controller into my computer, but I do so now so that I can finish its configuration and give it a shot in a game.


Watching a skilled player
I'm watching someone playing a game. Right now, he's in some kind of top down view of what I assume to be the game's galaxy, showing many planets, solar systems, and other astral objects. His ship is just a tiny dot currently orbiting a planet. Now he's received a mission to deliver something quickly to another planet which is on the other side of the galaxy, and I'm curious to see how he'll manage it, whether he'll try to use any kind of subspace gate or some-such or whether he'll just fly there without using any shortcuts. There's a lot of movement of the planets and systems, and he brilliantly uses gravity assist after gravity assist to fling himself to the other side of the map faster than I ever thought possible.

Now the game has switched to 2D side-scrolling action. He's not strong enough to fight the enemies here, so he's just running to the right, jumping over enemies as he encounters them, never stopping his movement. Now he's reached the end of the level, and he's got quite the crowd of enemies following him. There's only one enemy left between him and his goal, and it instantly kills him. He's a bit disappointed, but he's not really concerned, saying he'll get it next time.


Mad scientists
I'm watching a scientist in a lab. He's recently been exposed to a mutagen and needs to focus to keep his body from 'pooling' - but despite his constant attention, his gut is still very distended. Now he's overheard a junior scientist talking about revealing what's going on to their superiors - who have been kept in the dark - so the scientist manages to expose him to the mutagen. His skin ends up turning red and bumpy all over, and another scientist starts to permanently close his mouth by fusing another mutagen-infected <something> onto his face. I'm horrified, but thankfully another scientist convinces him to pull it off before it's too late.


Another vacation
I'm strolling through a beach town with my family and in-laws.

Now we're at the vacation house. My father-in-law needs some kind of charger. I run through the list of what I have, and he says he's already got the right cable, so he just needs my charger with the standard female USB port.

Now we're watching video provided by our management company showing a family touring the duplex we have up for rent. I can't believe how much stuff is left over from the previous renters - we're going to have to get over there and deal with it ASAP. In particular, the living room is full of baby toys and baby furniture. Now I'm looking at an application from a lady who'd like to move in. It says that she's requesting assistance to pay the rent - I've never seen anything like that before, and I show it to my wife. Looking more closely, we see that she's requesting a 3rd party source to pay $90 of her monthly rent. As we continue to look at it, we realize that the listed monthly rent is wrong; it's currently listed at $600 which is way too low. I can't remember exactly what it should be, but I think it's somewhere in the $700 range. In fact, the management company controls the rent and recently bumped it up due to market conditions. I'm going to have to contact them to find out what's going on. I'm frustrated that we can't probably change it for people who have already put in applications, but they really need to fix it immediately before any more applications come in.


Watching kids
I'm helping watch some kids who are all fairly young; I don't know any of them. One of them in particular is poorly behaved and doesn't want to go to bed. We end up doing something weird with sofa cushions and his crib to make a bed that he's willing to sleep in, and we're very relieved when it actually works. Some of his siblings are in the same bedroom as he is, so it's important for him to sleep so that they can sleep too.