Nazrax

Bed @ 2315 /w half melatonin
Woke @ 0350 (~4.5 hours)

Taking a cruise
I'm on a cruise, sitting at a table with Chris and two other guys I know (no idea who). Chris is recounting one of the doctrinal rabbit hole discussions I recently took him down. Now I'm in the next room over refilling my plate. I don't want to miss the conversation, but I'm really hungry, and I should be able to be quick enough to not miss much. I realize there's some event I'm supposed to be at that starts at 10:30, and it's almost 10:30 now; but since Chris is running the event, and since Chris is still sitting and talking, I should be OK. Most of the food is already gone, but I'm able to grab some wedges of cheese and some lettuce. The lettuce won't do me much good, but cheese is good and filling. Now I'm back at the table eating my lettuce. The ribs are a bit browned, so I'm tearing the tender part of the leaf off of the rib before eating it and discarding the rib. I feel a bit silly eating whole lettuce leaves by themselves, but no one notices, and I'm so hungry that I just don't care.

Now the ship is back in port, and I'm standing on deck talking to someone about how the trip went. I tell him that the trip was generally pretty good, but there were some rough parts - especially a nasty storm in which we actually lost a mast. I only heard about the mast falling third hand, but the guy I'm talking to actually saw it happen.


Falling tree
A large crowd of adults and children from church is walking along a sidewalk. Up ahead, a few people have already reached the crosswalk and are waiting to cross. I hear a loud crack and somehow know that a tall tree across the road is the one that broke, despite seeing no obvious sign. Sure enough, it comes crashing down across the road, stopping mere inches from Clayton and Rebecca. She looks very shaken up and starts walking home with her sons. I notice that she's wearing a colored long-sleeved shirt and some fairly tight jeans.


Fragment: I'm thinking about how hard it would be to take the kids to visit England. I "remember" being in a trans-Atlantic plane and having to go through a narrow tunnel to reach the "pod" in which I spent the flight and consider that our kids couldn't be alone in pods, that we'd have to be with them, but that they're so small that we'd be curled up with no space to move. I'd probably have to read stories for 7 hours, and there's no way my voice would last that long.

BTB @ 0400 /w half melatonin
Woke @ 0600 (alarm). No recall.


Nap time (1400-1530):

Driving with my daughter
I'm in the gray van with my oldest daughter, doing some kind of maintenance. Now the car is rolling along the road, and she's behind the wheel. I reach over to start the engine, but she's already pressing the gas pedal. I tell her to stop pressing it and am surprised when the sound of the car changes - I guess it's like the A/C or the vent, that even with the engine off the car can move itself, but it probably drains the batteries really quickly. With the gas pedal no longer depressed, I start the engine, and my daughter resumes driving. I hadn't planned to teach her to drive so early (she's only 10), but she's doing a great job. I wonder what my wife will say when we get home.

Now I'm sitting on the second row, and she's sitting in the passenger seat. I can't understand why she would have moved over to leave the car out of control, but she says that she's doing <something> and that everything's OK, she still has control.

Bed @ 2300
Woke @ 0030 with insomnia. I stayed in bed ~45 minutes, got up, drank hot milk, listened to a book, got back to bed at 0150. At 0230 I got up, took some melatonin, took a shower, and got back to bed at 0300.
Woke @ 0710. Total sleep: ~5.5 hours


Salads and news stories
I'm in a kitchen listening to the radio while preparing some salad. On the radio, the Russian president is announcing that after working closely with <John Doe> whose name I recognize in-dream as being my old coworker, he's announcing a preliminary treaty with the US. Our countries will be jointly working to acquire <some resource>. Together, we should be able to surpass Britain as the #1 producer of <the resource>. Unlike past ventures, we'll truly be working as one team, not just two teams working on the same project with the same goal.

As he's talking, I'm working on my salad. I've got a bunch of washed, cut up lettuce, but I'm having trouble getting the water off of it. Something is wrong with the salad spinner. In the end, I grab a clean sink strainer, put it in the bottom of my salad bowl, and put the lettuce on top of it. I figure the water should pool in the bottom of the bowl, and I can drain it later before serving it.

I hear another news story about former operatives who are trying to enter private life after being disabled in the field. A woman named Jennifer has become a professional cellist after losing half of her hearing. I'm surprised that someone with bad hearing can be a musician now; I guess she must have had exceptional hearing to start with.


Dark mansion
Some people in a game? are wandering through a dark mansion. The room they're currently in is square with a spiral staircase going up around the walls. A square hole takes up most of the floor. From my perspective, all I can see through the hole is blackness. The people in the room are careful to stay well away from the hole as they walk towards the bottom of the staircase.

Now my character is on a platform outside the mansion - it seems to have become a 2D platformer. I jump up and start to tunnel upwards through some blocks, but an enemy comes shooting out of the woodwork to my left and damages me. At first, I'm not concerned - I can lose a bit of health - but then more and more keep coming out as I'm climbing and I become seriously concerned about the loss of health.

"Tonight I will remember my dreams. Tonight I will know that I'm dreaming."
Bed @ 2235


Hot wall
I'm in my kitchen microwaving something. Now I'm in the pantry. I notice a strip of oddly-colored wall near the breaker box and take a closer look. I'm concerned that it may be discolored because of heat and put my hand against it to check. Sure enough, it's warm, though it's not hot enough to hurt. Now I notice that there's more color on the wall, and there seems to be a second breaker box. What's that? It turns out to be a copy of the breaker box that someone printed out and stuck to the wall, but now it's curling because of the heat. I'm starting to get really worried here, and I feel around more to see how far the heat goes. Nothing I touch is hot enough to hurt, but I still touch quickly and carefully in case a spot is actually really hot. Everything is merely warm, and it actually seems to be cooling down. I try to think if there's a way I can open up the wall to let it cool, but I can't think how.

Now the wall is half-height, and I've already removed the top. It turns out there was already a fan blowing into the space inside the wall, and without the top on a bunch of saw dust comes blowing out. My kids and the T family's kids are playing nearby, so I turn off the fan so they're not all breathing in sawdust. I'm surprised to see that it's actually our little space heater set to fan mode. Why did I use this? Weird.

Now the wall is down to just studs, and I'm looking through it to some unfinished construction behind. I'd forgotten that that room was back there. I'll have to finish that one of these days.

Now Frank is at the house, washing something off in the sink. Something strange happens, and I'm annoyed with him.


Game show
I'm watching a game show. From my perspective, I can see a huge audience. The room is dimly lit, but there are spotlights shining from all over towards a circular stage in the middle. In this show, the contestant tries to make an offer to the hosts to see if they'll take it. Donald Trump is one of the hosts. He's sitting in a chair in an observation room behind the wall of the arena looking down at the stage. Trump and another of the hosts completely turn down the competitor who's currently up. A third host works with him a bit. I see Trump press a button which causes his chair to start to descend through what looks like a (very slow) pneumatic tube. Somehow I know that his plan is to make the guy sweat, think that he's out, then pop back up and make a last-minute offer. As he's walking along a tunnel beneath the stage, he somehow gets accosted. Now I see another of the hosts get locked into a room somewhere. Someone very strange is in the room. When the announcer tries to reach them for any last-minute bids, he can't.

Fragment: Some kind of huge helicopter (it's much wider than it is tall) is going on some kind of rescue mission.

"Tonight I will remember my dreams. Tonight I will know I'm dreaming."
Overnight: Ninja's Subliminal Lucid 3
Bed @ 2250

Intra-office move
I'm walking towards the building I work in. I'm outside, between the two buildings, with the bridge above me. Now I'm walking onto the floor where my desk is being moved to. We don't actually have desk assignments; instead, it's first-come-first-served, so I'm here early to try to snag a good spot. The floor seems very haphazard, and it seems to be partitioned with rows and rows of tall bookcases made out of a dark wood and filled with books.

Now I'm at the end of a short dead-end made by the bookshelves. I know I'm about one row away from the wall. This area has room for three or four desks in a row, and I like it since it should be fairly quiet. I look at the hodge-podge of desks and am surprised at how different they are. Some are just tables and don't have any storage (but that's OK, especially since I only come into the office once every week or two). One of them looks like a mail sorter and has lots of storage but no room for a chair under it (no thanks). I choose a desk near the end and leave some of my stuff on it to claim it. Now I'm standing at the entrance to my little area, and I see a circle of desks set up to my right. I see someone I know setting up his desk and walk over to talk to him. He says they're trying to get all the docs people set up in the same spot, and I think that's a great idea.

I decide to try to convince the network guys (who I'm constantly talking to) to set up in my little alley. Now I'm talking to one of them who I respect but don't know well. He thinks it's a good idea too. Now I'm back in my little alley, and I'm annoyed to see that he's moved my stuff from the desk I put it on to the smaller desk next to it so he could take my desk for his own. I look to see if my new desk will serve my needs, but it won't: I need to set up 3 monitors, and it's just not wide enough. However, I see that the desk on the other side of the new guy (actually a 6 foot folding table) will suite my needs just fine, so I move my stuff over there.

Now I'm talking to my wife on the phone. She wants to know when I'll be heading home to know whether we can all ride together or whether she needs to take alternate transportation. It looks like I'll have to work late, so she'll take public transportation home.

Now I'm trying to make some coffee on a drip pot that's set up near the entrance to my alley. Something is clogged, and things aren't flowing well, but it's already running. I try to fix it, but carefully so that I don't burn myself. I wonder if I accidentally dropped something into it that clogged it.

Now I've left work and am walking along a dark path to my car. Dark buildings are to my left, and trees are to my right. I'm trying to walk confidently and alertly, not letting my attention wander at all, since I don't want to be jumped by either animals or people. I try to turn on my phone's flashlight, but the phone seems to be completely dead. Ugh, not again. I fish out the USB cable from the charger I carry in my pocket and plug my phone in, but I do it all by touch, not wanting to look away from the path.

"Tonight, I will remember my dreams. Tonight, I will know that I'm dreaming."
Overnight: Ninja's subliminal lucid
Bed @ 2305
Woke @ 0240 (~3:30 asleep)

Making Legos
I've got a new mold-your-own-bricks kit from Lego. I've broken up some old PVC pipe from basement scrap and I'm feeding it into a hole in a table along with some colored stuff from the Lego kit. I can see it start to melt and become soft even as it disappears from sight. I know that soon I'll have the equivalent of a big boxes' worth of Lego bricks, and it only cost me $40. The kids keep coming up to ask me what I'm doing, but all I'll tell them is "something" and "wait and see." Now I'm looking at a flier that came with the kit reminding me that it entitles me to three free instruction manuals and to redeem the offer at my local Lego store.

Extinction event
I'm walking along a wooded path with my wife thinking about extinction events. I'm getting worried because some of my off-world feeds have gone dead recently. I start talking about some of my worries obliquely, as most people - including my wife - don't realize there's anything special about these feeds. She finds the conversation strange enough that eventually I have to explain more, and I get an are-you-puling-my-leg look from her. I keep on anyway, explaining that I'm concerned that there's a hostile intelligence moving through the galaxy wiping out life and that it's headed for Earth.

Now we're looking down an incline and can view a neighborhood street that's full of strange creatures. They're furry (grayish/brownish fur) and about 8 or 10 feet tall, and they have a spherical "head" with four very square legs. When they're standing still, the legs blend into each other and they end up looking like a sphere on a square pole. Most are moving around, and a green gas is oozing out from the bottoms of their legs. There's no doubt in my mind that the gas is deadly. We start hurrying along the path hoping to get away from them, but we soon encounter a group. I tell my wife to hold her breath while I pull the emergency respirator out from her backpack. I'll need one too, but one of my special abilities will let me hold my breath much longer than she can. However, as I work at her backpack (which is resisting my attempts to unzip it), holding my breath is much harder than it should be, and I'm already feeling a desperate desire to breathe.

I can only assume that story-line came from the current Schlock Mercenary strips.


Fragment: I'm in church on a sunday morning.

BTB @ ???
Woke @ 0705

Running for office
Somehow I get convinced to run for political office. I'm not too happy about the idea, but I can't do any worse than most of the people in office, so I agree to do it. I see a picture of myself and am not very happy with it - I look like a kid. I think I need to wear a suit and a bold tie to look more dignified.

Now I'm watching a TV and hear the Iowa results: Cruz came in dead last, and <someone not Trump> won. I'm very disappointed about Cruz, but at least Trump didn't get the nomination.


Running errands
My wife and I are both out running errands. I'm looking at a map showing where both of us have gone, and we haven't overlapped at all yet, but it looks like we're about to soon. I hope that doesn't mean we're duplicating our efforts.

Now I'm pulling the big white van into a small parking lot. I already don't like to drive this car, and I really don't like places it'll be hard to turn around in, but this is even worse because it's already almost completely full. To make matters even worse, a few more cars pull in behind me, so I'm afraid I'm completely stuck. Somehow I manage to turn around and get pointed back towards the driveway without actually running into any other cars.


Temporary insanity
I'm thinking about a book I'm reading in which, under certain circumstances, a kind and loving king goes completely insane. He's talking with his two daughters about the problem, how to avoid that situation, and how to deal with this problem long-term, completely solving it if possible.


DIY Plumbing
I'm in a small room doing some kind of home maintenance. First, there's a broken pipe and water to clean up. I end up using my shop vac to suck it all up and then dump it out the outside door near me. Now I continue using the shop vac to suck up some building debris - bits of wood, screws, etc.

Overnight audio: Ninja's subliminal recall
Mantra: "Tonight I will remember my dreams."
Bed @ 2220
Woke @ 0125


Parliamentary address
I see a movie poster depicting an average guy who's suddenly put in charge of a huge casino after returning from overseas. The casino is depicted as a set of three giant steel-and-glass buildings. The guy in the billboard looks completely bewildered. Now I see a guy in rich attire sitting in a chair while reading. His hands are cuffed together in front of him, but he doesn't seem to notice or care. I gather that he's the real owner of the casino.

Now I'm sitting in a HUGE auditorium. At the very front, a woman is standing behind a VERY large podium giving a very zealous speech about this man and how terrible he is. In my mind, we're in England in some kind of government building / halls of Parliament / etc. The "podium" is a giant wooden structure that's probably thirty feet high and is as wide as the hall, though it's only a few feet deep. Somehow, even though she's a long way from me, I see her as if I'm just a few feet away. After a short time, she suddenly interrupts her speech to call for attendants to check everyone's tickets.

Now my perspective is from my seat way back in the hall. Officials have started moving around looking at people's tickets, and I'm worried because I don't have one. I look to my left at Mom, who's sitting one row up against the wall, to see if she has any. She nods to say that everything is OK. I get up and start to head towards her. A lady checking tickets is heading my way, and I try to walk as if I'm completely confident. I hope I don't lose my seat, but I'm more concerned about not being thrown out by the officials.

Now Mom has joined me and we're headed across the hall to where my step-father is - it seems he's got the tickets. Now we're in the little store where he is. He pulls four passports out from a bag and hands them to me. I'm surprised that our passports are our tickets: I thought they were going to be actual specific tickets, not just IDs. I'm a bit surprised that there are four, but I reason that one of them must be my baby son's. Now my daughters and a couple of their friends are writing down numbers from inside the four passports. I open them wide and try to hold them so everyone can see, but eventually I put a couple of them on the floor so the girls can see all four at once.


Looking for secret passages
I have a top-down view of a maze-like series of hallways. Everything is grayscale; there's no color. Using a limited number of moves, I'm moving my character through them looking for something. I do something to trigger a popup question, and my answer seems to be wrong. Now it's someone else's turn. He does something similar, though he changes a few things, and he discovers a secret passage. It's still not the one we'd actually been hunting for, but it's still exciting. Now the view changes. It looks like his character has dropped through a hole and is standing on a walkway around a large round object. He's got a pop-up asking whether to release the cursed ball. He picks "No" and is informed that the puzzle will be reset. We're both rather put out at this news. Sure, we don't want to have to carry around a cursed item, but it looks like that's what's necessary to proceed, and now it'll be a while before we can get back there again.

BTB @ 0205 (after fixing beeping freezer)
Woke @ 0610


Bombing Stark HQ
I'm driving along an interstate and look left out my window. Other than trees and gently rolling ground, the only thing I see is a sky scraper. I know that it's scheduled for demolition today. As I watch, a plane flies by and drops a bomb. I expect that the bomb is going to hit the building and explode, but it actually hits the ground, "skids" towards the building, and explodes once it's inside. The explosion is a brilliant orange cone, laced with lines of yellow, that shoots out of the top of the building. It's surprisingly narrow - it's clearly a very finely shaped charge. It's an amazing sight, and I wish I'd been able to capture it. Now I'm out of my car fiddling with my phone, trying to open up the camera app before the next bomb hits. I realize it's not working because the battery is low, so I hurriedly plug in my portable USB batter. I manage to get some footage, though it's pretty poor.

Now I'm standing next to a parking deck, very close to the unharmed building. Up close, the building is very attractive and also much shorter than it was earlier. It's kind of egg shaped and made out of a laticework of greenish glass. The Stark Arc Reactor is visible inside. I know the first plane is about to come by to drop its bomb. I hold the phone up to take video, but I realize that I'm really close to the building - this may not be a good idea. The bomb slides across the parking lot, goes into the building, and boom - but this time the explosion is far smaller. Is that because I'm standing here?

Now I'm showing my wife the photos and footage of the destruction that I got. The first shot shows Stark HQ unharmed. The second picture is after the first bomb fell; you can see damage, but it's not too bad. The next shot is after the second bomb, and it looks much, much worse: it's lost much of its color, pipes are sticking out at strange angles, and it's smoking some.


Fragment: I'm driving along a wooded road and come to a very round building with a flat top. Now I'm inside. The people there are all friendly but are all giving off a "why are you here" vibe.

Bed @ 2320
Listening to Ninja's Subliminal Recall overnight
Woke @ 0400

Walking downtown
I'm downtown somewhere waiting to cross a side street. The main street is in front of me; two or three story buildings are on each side of the side street. Now the light has changed and stairs have come up out of the street. I'm a few steps up but see that my daughter (#2) is still looking at something on the sidewalk. I call to her to hurry since we need to climb the stairs before the light changes again.

Now we're walking along a wide (~10') balcony. The street is down to our right and residences are to our left. We pass a doorway to a private balcony that's covered with only a sheet. Now we're looking at something on the private balcony: a commemorative plaque which is dedicated to the resident's mother, who died during childbirth, and to her father, who died 12 minutes later.

Now I'm in a largish room somewhere, and my kids are asking about what the plaque means. I don't want to give them too much info in case they start talking randomly about it and the woman realizes we got onto her balcony; but I also don't want to leave them in complete ignorance so I decide to tell them just enough to satisfy their curiosity.
I tell them there's a disease called <something> that, once detected, needs to be dealt with really quickly, but that most hospitals aren't equipped to deal with it and that patients with it need to be transferred to <place>, which takes about 15 minutes. For adults, that's OK, but sometimes it's too long for babies. (Somehow I think that answers the question about the mother). But, I have no idea why the father died 12 minutes later.

My recall has been terrible recently, but tonight was actually pretty good.

Bed @ 2205
Listening to Cloudsurfer
Woke @ 0455

Hair cutting kit
I'm walking through a grocery store and see a barber giving a demonstration of a hair cutting kit on a guy in the barber chair. The barber is demonstrating different tools and things that the kit can do, which means the volunteer's hair is looking stranger by the minute. He's not happy about it, but there's not much he can do - he doesn't want to stand up with sharp things close to his face.

Now I'm telling my friends that I've already ordered one of these kits and that it came this morning. I'm excited about it because, unlike the demo models, it has all functionality enabled, including the time control. I think how strange it would be to be thirty forever, but one of my friends cautions against it, wondering what the side-effects are. I wonder if you'd lose your memory back to the point you revert to, and that gives me pause.


The mall / the diner
I'm walking with a group of people through a mall. Peter and my wife are both with us. Peter and I are wearing long-sleeved button-down dress shirts and talking about how great they are. We swap notes on where we got our shirts and how much they cost. They're both a light pastel color - a blue or a green.

Now we're walked outside. We're still standing under the mall's giant overhang. Some people have set up tables out here, and Peter talks to the people running them - he clearly knows them well, but it's been a long time since he's been here, and they're glad to see him. I consider going to the car to get something, but I realize I forgot my shoes and it's been raining, and I don't want to get my socks soaked. I realize we'll all be going in a minute anyway and decide I'll have to do my best to walk on my toes to avoid getting the rest of my feet wet.

Now we're running up a grassy incline towards a diner. We used to go here, and this climb always winded me, but I'm doing great today. Now we're near the top, and I'm finally struggling. I'm disappointed - I thought I'd be able to make it all the way without slowing down too much.

Now we're near the top. Someone is fighting off some bees. I step back, not wanting to be stung, but he does OK.

Now we're in the diner. I've got a card game in my back pocket that I carry around because it's simple and fun. I want to show it to Peter, but I can't find a good moment. I fiddle with the rubber bands I brought to keep the deck together.

Now I'm sitting at a table looking at a diagram of a new shopping center someone wants to build. I notice a square right in the middle of other buildings and I ask about it, since no one would be able to get to it. The answer I receive is a non-answer, and I'm not satisfied with it. Someone else says that the most important thing in the new shopping center is a diner: without it, people won't have reason to come. A store is a store, but if there's a diner, people will come to eat and then stay to shop.


In-law suite
I'm "at home" talking to my wife about how to care for her parents when they get old. She's talked before about building out some kind of apartment for them to live with us. I wonder how that would work, where we'd put it (back yard, maybe?), then remember we have an unfinished basement. It wouldn't be cheap to finish it, but I bet John and I could frame it out fairly cheaply; those studs were only a couple of dollars each. We'd still need to have someone do the drywall, but we'd still save a lot of money. I think about what part of the basement to finish and what to leave unfinished - I still need my workshop.


Old planes
I'm driving on multilane road. I look to my right and see a plane driving next to us with a woman in the cockpit. The propeller is huge, and I hope it doesn't clip us. I wonder if she's going to keep "driving" or if she'll finally take off, and how fast she'll need to be to get off the ground. We're already going highway speeds, and her plane is shaking as if she's right at the line between driving and flying.

Now I'm walking with a couple of other guys by some old, retired planes. We start by talking about how much air gets pushed through each engine, that it's a surprisingly small amount, but then we get to talking about the majesty of these planes, which are all very large cargo or bombers. A Korean one in particular looks amazing. We round some of the planes and come across a guy wearing a mascot suite. One of the guys I'm with greets him.

Now we're inside a large building. Mascot guy is out of his suit, and we're all getting ready to work on a weird project, getting some old piece of equipment functioning again. Mascot guy is put in charge as the <something> sergeant.


Mansion RPG
I'm playing a game, a top-down RPG. My character is running north in a mansion corridor being chased by something. I think I'm going to make it, but then I hit a shadowed section that I can't pass and get caught. Turn-based battle starts. I tell all my party to attack, and I'm surprised they're all area attacks. There's only one enemy, so I'd have preferred directed attacks. To my surprise, the enemy is killed before he gets a turn. Now I'm back in the corridor and the dark patch is gone. I understand now: each patch is created by an enemy, and the enemy has to be killed to remove the patch.

Now I'm in another hallway. I see something on a counter but end up in a battle. This time, I grab the desert before the enemies can, crack it open, and scoop out the passion fruit. There are three enemies, and I hope to pacify them all b y giving them some. I give some to the first two enemies, and they're happy; but then I can't find any for the third one. I'm hunting through the ruined desert, trying to find even one seed, and he's getting impatient. I stall him while trying to figure out what to do.

Bed @ 2300
Woke at 0335 (slept for ~4.5 hours)

Celebrity reorganization
I'm trying to reorganize the white van so that a celebrity can sit in it more comfortably. I'm having trouble, though -- there are so many seats, it's overwhelming.

Music / Naturopath's shop
I'm at the end of a pier trying to do something while I listen to music. The nearby radio is playing techno, which is fun, since I listen to it so rarely these days. Unfortunately, it's really staticy, so I walk over to it to see if I can fine-tune the dial. I decide to use my phone's FM transceiver to locally broadcast something like Pandora, but I'm surprised to see it's already on. At first I think it may be interfering with the techno station and making the music staticy, but then I realize the radio is already tuned to my phone's "station" and the problem is that the radio is one band off from where the phone is broadcasting. I put the radio on the correct frequency and get some nice clear music.

I'm being driven around town by someone I know. We're in his sedan, and the music from earlier is playing.

Now he's dropped me off at the door to a naturopath's shop. As I reach for the handle, I see a sign hanging on the door. At first i think it's a 'Closed' sign, but then I actually read it and realize it's not. I go in, and the owner greets me warmly. He asks how I've been doing; I tell him I'm generally better, though I still feel fuzzy more often than I'd like. He apologizes that he can't talk any longer with me right now, saying that he needs to get back to the woman he's in the middle of helping, and that he'll talk with me after he's done with her. While I wait, I wander a bit. As I pass near the register, I notice a large pile of baseballs behind it. As I look more closely, I see that they're oblong, not round, and that they're fabric toys, not real baseballs. One of them has something written on it.

Now I've wandered into a large group of teens / early twenties people in the middle of organizing a dance. They invite me along, and I accept. I push my way through to the far edge of the crowd then sit and listen to them.

Now I see a group of teens near a coastline, and I somehow know that they're running away from home because they've contracted a disease that badly disfigures them. I can't understand why they're running - after all, sooner or later everyone is going to get it and look equally horrible.


BTB @ 0350
Woke @ 0715 (~3.5 hours)

Mario's powerups
I'm playing Mario. I head to the left and see a platform with two flowers on it which oddly aren't in pipes. I kill them and they leave behind fire flowers, but I'm not interested in them. I jump to the left to another platform and kill an enemy, hoping it'll drop a sparkly mushroom, but it doesn't. I far enough to the right to get both platforms off the screen, then head left again. I kill the flowers (getting fire flowers again) then the other enemy, and this time I get the sparkly mushroom I want. Unfortunately, as I head to the left, a normal mushroom comes out of nowhere and turns Mario back into the basic Big Mario.

Again I head right and then left, and this time I get an upgrade that I call the Cherub (though in hindsight it looked a lot more like a Moogle). Since it has wings, I assume I can fly as long as I want. I hold the jump button expecting to fly up, but I fall right back down. I rapidly push the jump button and fly up into an area with lots of platforms - cool, a secret area! Unfortunately, as I'm passing a platform I suddenly lose the Cherub suit. Somehow, I know it was due to bad timing on my part.

Now I'm back at the two platforms on the left. Again I get the sparkly mushroom. Now I'm back at the high platforms. Even though I can't fly any more, I'm able to jump from platform to platform to get higher and higher. I look forward to seeing where the platforms take me.

Bed @ 2245
Woke @ 0525 (slept for 6:40)

Hanging a poster
I'm at Jeff's house, about to hang a large sheet of paper (a poster or some-such) on the back of a door. As I look more closely at the door, I realize it's actually got a smaller, much fancier door somehow attached to the side facing me. I also realize the whole thing is very nicely finished (a dark stain) without a blemish anywhere. I realize there's no way I can use push-pins to hang up my paper. Jeff says it's OK, though his manner says it really isn't. I tell him I'll use some masking tape or painter's tape if he has some, but he says he's not sure. I look around and see a roll of something, but it's not blue tape. I realize the door isn't actually attached to anything, but is rather propped up against the wall behind it, and I look behind it to find a whole pile of rolls of tap, including a few rolls of blue tape. I grab one and start to pull a strip off, but then I realize it's not painter's tape but is actually drywall mesh. When I look back down at it it's not even blue. Why did I think it was blue? I reroll the mesh and look at the pile again, but the whole thing is drywall mesh.

Now I'm in a storage room looking for painter's tape. Once again, I find plenty of drywall mesh - including some blue stuff - but no painter's tape. Now I run across a strange box advertising something about gender equality with lots of pictures of lightning bolts. Now I'm watching a promo video for it. It looks like bot both the husband and wife need to wear a wire garment, and when the wife doesn't like what her husband is doing she can zap him, but she gets zapped too (hence the equality bit).


Lab investigation
A woman is investigating a lab. Before she can react, the place fills up with a translucent green goo which sweeps her down a tunnel. As she's carried through the tunnel a strange worm suit ends up getting built around her, and when she comes out the other end she's a giant flying worm. Scientists start attacking her, but she manages to flee. Now she's back to human, though still a little red/chafed from her adventure. She's outside the lab, at night, talking to a guy - tall, wide, with a big beard - who ends up being a traitor. Something happens with lasers. He takes a shot at another guy, but he's got a gizmo that turns any incoming shot into a giant cucumber and shoots it back, so the traitor is killed by a giant cucumber through the head. Now there's something about Stargate's later seasons.

Fragment: I'm in church, after Sunday School, talking to Sam about fixing the door frames in our house that don't work quite right any more because of house sagging.


BTB @ 0545
Woke @ 0730 (slept ~1.5 hours)

Plane watching
I'm watching planes taxi down a road. It's really congested and looks like a big traffic jam. Some of the planes are taking an "exit" off to the right.

Now I'm standing on a runway talking to a guy who I know to be a drone pilot. He's holding what looks like a generic take-out box with some numbers written on top, but somehow I know it's his drone remote. Another guy is standing nearby holding two of them; he's clearly more experienced, while I believe this is this guy's first drone flight.

Now I'm seeing the road again. The newer pilot explains that all planes have to take roads AM3 through AM9 from the hangars to their assigned runways. There's a building off to the left, and he calls it the AM building.

Now I'm seeing one of the drones - basically a full-sized airplane with no cockpit - taking off. I wonder why the drone company doesn't have its own runways since that would clearly save so much time.

Bed @ 2330 after a long day at the museum and on the road
Woke @ 0400 by dog. Back to sleep around 0500.
Woke @ 0600, immediately back to sleep. Woke @ 0715.

Foreign food
I'm with a guy I know in a foreign restaurant. They don't speak any English, and we don't speak whatever language they speak (something African, maybe), but the guy I'm with knows the words to order what he's been told is a really good dish, so he orders for us.

Now I'm with some people walking through a city. They want to try out this dish too, since it was good. Ahead, the part of the city where the restaurant is comes into view. In fact, it's hard to miss the transition, going from normal buildings to what looks to be half-finished chaos (boards and girders sticking out of buildings at all angles). Now we're loading up inside a huge elevator. I'd been worried there wouldn't be room for our group, but there's plenty. Unfortunately, we got a bit strung out, so we're waiting for the guys in the rear to catch up. Bob keeps having to hit the door open button, and I feel bad for people on other floors who need the elevator. I notice a large monitor above the control panel but have no idea what it's for. Eventually, the elevator starts beeping at us and won't respond to the door open button any more. Our pastor's son and another guy still haven't made it; they'll just have to take the next elevator. Now we're going up, and I realize that this elevator has no inner door and we can see the building whooshing by, and that if anyone stuck had through the opening he'd probably lose it.

Now we're walking through some kind of fancy restaurant. I'm self-conscious in my shirt and jeans, and some of the diners are giving us nasty looks, but the place is mostly empty so it's not too bad, and it doesn't really matter since we're just walking through on our way to our destination.

Now Alex is riding on some electric vehicle around a large empty room adjacent to the large restaurant room.


Fragment: I'm at a gas station pumping gas into my car. I notice that, in contrast to the station I was at earlier in the day, this one doesn't have the big "It is illegal to walk away from the pump while it's running" sign.

Bed @ 2230
Woke @ 0220

Cave level
I'm playing a 3rd person game of some kind. I'm in a mine level, in the main shaft. Large caves open to the sides. Everything is brown and gray, and the level geometry is very bumpy. I'm at the bottom of the level, and I know the whole level slopes up. As I'm exploring a large side room, a green liquid starts to come in from the lower end. The first time it touches my character, there's a kind of sizzle. The next time, he dies. Now I've restarted in the main shaft. This time I know what's coming, so I don't wait but start running up the tunnel. Eventually the acid catches me, but I make it a lot further. I do it a few more times and get further each time. Somehow I know that this is a bonus level and that my character's level determines how long it is until the acid starts to arrive - the higher my level, the greater the delay.

Now people are LARPing the game. Someone tries an attack class, then someone else tries another class. Each class has a differently colored robe. Now Adam and Jamie are trying it together. Jamie is dressed in a brown robe, while Adam is standing off to the side. For some reason, they're doing it such that Adam is telling Jamie exactly what to do, including where to go, when to jump, etc. Unsurprisingly, things go hilariously badly.

Now it's my turn. I choose the Hammer class, though I'm dressed in my normal street clothes. I pick up a pepper grinder with a large handle, walk over to Jamie, and pantomime whacking him on the head with my pepper grinder hammer. I tell people that, because I used a hammer (improvised or not) I get a hit bonus. The bonus is 50%, so my attack goes from 100HP up to 150HP. I'm disappointed - that's not powerful enough to kill even the weakest creature in a single hit. I'd hoped that I'd be able to deal with the first few low-level creatures easily before reaching enemies that took more than one hit. I ask someone where Ben and Mandy are, since I thought they'd be here, but he says they went to bed at 10.

Bed @ 2330
Woke @ 0330

Fragment: I'm at home, thinking about Apollo 13 and Mission Control


Woke @ 0645

Driver on the lawn
I look out one of the front windows of my house and see a guy in a pickup truck (white, with a blue logo on the side) drive from right to left across my yard leaving tire tracks in the grass. Part of me is annoyed, while part is curious: how did he get through the bushes on the right side of the property? And just what does he think he's doing? Now it's another day. I look up and see the same guy in the same truck drive across the lawn in the same way, now leaving a second set of tire tracks. Incensed, I get up to run outside to try to get more info about who he is and try to figure out how to stop him.

Now I'm outside. There's no sign of the truck, but there is some heavy stuff around the yard that hadn't been there before, including a few traffic barrels and some kind of heavy concrete thing with chain coming out of it. I decide to use these things to block off one side of my lawn so he can't drive through it again.


Armed intruders
I'm in my garage at night working on some kind of project. An unexpected movement, seen out of the corner of my eye, makes me instinctively grab a piece of nearby scrap wood and whirl to face it. The movement turns out to have been some kind of small animal that snuck in, so I relax. As I turn back around to whatever I was doing, I see a young woman coming towards me. I brandish the scrap wood in a defensive posture. I realize the wood is much lighter than I'd expected, and it won't actually make for a great weapon, but she won't know that. Unfortunately, she pulls out a small handgun, and I doubt my ability to rush and club her. I duck behind a pillar, but not before I see two men, also with guns out, starting to flank me. I know there's no way I can keep the pillar between myself and all three of them, so I get as low as I can, put down the wood, and put my hands behind my head - partly as protection, partly as a sign of surrender. The woman reaches me first and points her gun at my head. I offer a quick prayer to commit my soul to God and stare at her, waiting for her to pull the trigger but hoping she won't.

Now I'm alone, and I have the gun from one of the guys. At first glance it looks to be a small revolver. When I open the cylinder, I see that it has more than one ring of bullets; wow. As I look more at them, I realize the bullets are a variety of shapes, sizes and lengths. Further examination shows that, instead of being arranged in multiple rings, the bullets are actually arranged in triangular groups of three, so each third round is closer to the center than the others. I wonder how the guy could keep track of which bullet is where. When I close the cylinder again, I see that he'd put pieces of masking tape on the outside with labels showing which bullet was in which spot.


Discount pizza
I'm going through my mail and run across yet another flier from my <company>. I'm a little annoyed: they've been sending these things out for days now. The strangest thing about it is that each flier is addressed to a different person. Yesterday it came to my wife, and today it came to Robert, a guy at church I've said 'hi' to once or twice. As I look over it, I see a note saying that this is the last flier, and tomorrow they'll get back to their regular business of <something>. I'm relieved. As I go to throw away the flier, I see a bunch of tiny coupons along the bottom. One catches my eyes: $78 off an order from a local pizza place I've never heard of. I show it to my wife, who's in the process of putting some random leftovers into the oven, and suggest that we could do pizza for dinner tonight. I know we've had pizza recently, but we're running really low on leftovers, and it's hard to turn away free pizza. She agrees.

Now I'm at my computer pulling up their website. I wonder if I'll have to create an account, and I wonder if it'll be a problem that the flier was sent to Robert and not to me. When the site comes up, it says "Hello Nazrax" in the corner, and I'm surprised - I don't remember coming here before. Oh well. I look around for a place to put a coupon code but I can't find one. I look back at the flier and see it says to call them up, talk to Rebecca, and ask her to associate coupon code 147xx with my forum account. On the web page, I notice that my name is a link, and I click it to see if it goes to a forum profile.

Now I'm eating a really good sandwich I'd ordered from them while I was trying to figure out how to get the discount. My hands are a bit greasy, so I ask my wife to make the call.


Alien transformation
A woman is investigating something on another planet. Now she's been captured and is in an enemy spacecraft. She sees another woman trapped in a strange field, being raised up into something, and dashes over to her, jumping into the field herself, trying to save her. Now they're in it together, rising up into a hole in the ceiling. A strange glowy black sphere comes down to them. I have the feeling they're going to become psychically conjoined.

Now she's somewhere else, being examined by her own people. Sure enough, she's now aware of the other woman's thoughts; but she's also been turned into a cat woman with yellowish fur. She's very unhappy about everything, including her new instincts, but someone points out that <important person>'s main bodyguard is a cat woman.

Bed @ 2230
Woke @ 0220

After the cataclysm
I'm looking at a globe. Now, I'm looking at a globe online, after some kind of cataclysm has hit, looking at an area high up in the northern hemisphere. There's a large unlabeled landmass, and around it are fairly small islands, each marked with a country name. I see the US, the UK, France, and many others. I'm glad all the countries survived, though I'm saddened to see how small everything is now.

Now I'm outside, at night, in an impromptu campground filled with people who survived the cataclysm and no longer have a home. We're pretty comfortable here, as we made good preparations before the event, but there are many people with nothing at all. I look past a fence to the ocean and remember that we won't be staying here for much longer, as this area will soon be underwater.

Now I'm walking along a road looking at GPS on a small display on my phone's portable charger. I hadn't realized it, but it seems the charger can act as a second display to the phone. I'm using it now since this display draws less power than the phone's built-in display, and who knows when I'll be able to plug either device again. I get some kind of weird popup asking whether the charger or the phone should be considered the GPS source; I'm confused for a moment, then realize what it means and pick the correct answer.

Now I know that, if I follow this road for a while, I'll hit a certain intersection. I'll need to turn right along <some road> and keep going, and eventually I'll reach where we need to be.

Now it's day. I'm standing outside my car, in a deserted shopping center parking lot. I'm annoyed both at the car and at myself since it broke down half way to where I was going. Now I'm doing something - some kind of maintenance - that's gotten my hands really nasty and greasy. I see my wife drive by and I want to call her, to tell her she passed me, but I don't want to get my phone dirty. I'm working with another guy, and his hands are clean, so I move my arm to shift my jacket so he can see the phone and ask him to grab it, hit home, and tap the icon showing my wife's picture.

Now I'm at a run-down home. There's a screen door that's not working right - something's wrong with the pneumatic cylinder. Now there's a guy with me oiling it using some crazy contraption he built himself that has four cans of oil arranged in a circle tat he can pull the piston through to oil every surface at once. I'm impressed, and he tells me something of the device's origin.


Woke @ 0700 (alarm)

Talking about marriage
I'm on a conference call with Kaleb and Chad (I'm either driving or at a coffee shop, not sure which). Kaleb asks Chad if the "Not a constructor" error has been fixed. Chad says it isn't, and Kaleb asks what it even is, so Kaleb starts a screen share so Chad can guide him to see what's going on. When the share first comes up, Jira is on the screen, and Sara says "Now THAT'S a kanban board!"

Now we're talking about the woman Kaleb wants to marry which is strange, considering he's been married for years. I ask him if he's given her the ring yet, and he hems and haws, explaining he really wanted to do twelve/twelve, ten/ten, eight/eight, etc (something to do with liking even months?), though he likes ten best. I thought he'd been aiming for an April wedding, so I'm pleased that I may yet beat him which is also strange, since I've been married longer than he has.


A tight tunnel
I'm seeing a view through a tight tunnel. It's constructed on both sides and above and has packed dirt below. A pipe is running along the ceiling. I'm very thankful I don't have to crawl through there - it looks really claustrophobic, and there's no way to turn around. Now my view has shifted to a 90 degree corner that looks difficult (but not impossible) to get around. Now my view has shifted to the next corner. This time, there are two pipes - one coming from each direction - and they make the clearance low enough that it won't be possible to get through. I consider that, since the bottom is dirt, it may be possible to dig down a little to have enough clearance, but it'll be tiring and tough, and there may not be enough area to spread out the dirt.

Now I'm beyond the tunnel's exit, hiding behind a beat-up car in some kind of war zone. The combatants haven't yet seen me, and I'm examining the area to decide what to do next.

Monthly Humble Bundle
I'm looking at the Humble Bundle's site and see a game that both looks interesting and is available for Linux. I'm immediately interested and look to see which bundle I'm looking at and how much it costs. After a moment, I realize this is one of the games in the current monthly bundle. I can't remember if it's too late to take advantage of now, but I don't think it is. I finally find a price: $35. I'm surprised (and disappointed) it's that high - no way am I paying that.