Recent DJ Posts

12/26/11

Donut Data
I am in my car and on my way to work. I have a job at a data center at a hospital. I didn't really want to take such a position again, but I felt I had no choice since I haven't been finding a job in computer or game design. I get to work and I park in a parking garage that seems much larger than it needs to be. I realize I forgot my lunch. I work nights, so it isn't really lunch, but I know I will be hungry. I also have no money. It's ok, I think, I'll just jack someone else's lunch. No one will ever know it was me. I don't stop to consider that the other person will be hungry or that there might not be anyone else's lunch available… I go to the data center and get ready to start working. There are other people there with me, but they are not computer operators. They are going about other business. I fill out a couple of forms I need to complete before starting the nightly backup. As I fill out the forms I wonder if I am getting it wrong. The form looks different somehow… In the data center I find a box of donuts being kept warm on the exhaust vent of one of the computers. I take two donuts. An idiot comes in and starts eating donuts in the data center, dripping jelly everywhere, including in the computers. I hear jelly sizzling inside the circuits, but nothing goes wrong. I head to get the backup tapes, hoping I can get a backup of the data and get out of there before the computers take a major jelly-induced crap.


Lord of the Flies
I am in a strange place, I look around and see it looks like the interior of a volcano or something… actually the entire area is filled with volcanoes. The sky is filled with black clouds and there are actual rivers of flowing lava coming from some of the surrounding mountains. The result is that the landscape is bathed in an eerie reddish glow. Somehow the air isn't choked with smoke, though, most of that seems to stay in the upper atmosphere. Maybe kept there by wind currents? There are cloaked people around me, eleven of them to be exact, standing in a circle around me. I realize I am lying on a bed of soft grasses and hay, and the people around me are chanting. It's as if I can hear a song playing in my head… Iron Maiden's "Lord of the Flies" is clear in my mind. I feel healing energy washing over me, and I know they are trying to help me feel better, I am feeling better already… more motivated, less depressed. I relax and let them do their ritual.


I don't care for this world anymore
I just want to live my own fantasy
Faith has brought me to these shores
What was meant to be is now happening

I've found that I like this living in danger
Living on the edge it feels... it makes me feel as one
Who cares now what's right or wrong it's reality
Killing so we survive wherever we may roam
Wherever we may hide we've got to get away

I don't want existence to end
We must prepare ourselves for the elements
I just want to feel like the storm
We don't need a code of morality

I like all the mixed emotion and anger
It brings out the animal the power you can feel
And feeling so high on this much adrenalin
Excited but scared do you believe what we've become?

Saints and sinners
Something within us
We are lord of the flies

Saints and sinners
Something willing us
To be lord of the flies

The Halls of Data
I am heading to work at a hospital where I am a computer operator. I am parking in a huge parking garage that is arranged more like a massive maze than a regular parking garage. My mother is in the car with me, I am taking her to show her my office. We park at what is near the far side of the parking garage and then navigate the endless passages to get to the entrance of the hospital. I know exactly how to get to the data center, though the halls in the hospital are just as confusing as the parking garage. Two different times I lose my mom and I have to go back to find her. The data center is full of various computers, some of them are state of the art, others are ancient dinosaurs.

It turns out the dinosaur computers are nearly as useful as the new ones. Several employees are heading out for a smoking break, and I go along with them. We are outside on a patio and everyone lights up cigarettes and starts to smoke. A woman coworker notices I don't have a cigarette, so she lights one and hands it to me. I take the cigarette and take a drag from it. The smoke tastes gross, though I get a nice calm feeling along with it. The feeling has nothing compared to the horrible foul taste, and then there's the smell. The foul odor. I definitely don’t want any more of that. We are all playing a game of cards to win small colorful dragon figures that are encased in yummy candy. I win a large number of them and I sit back against the wall eating the candy.


The Missing Link
I am on an island in the middle of the ocean. I am looking all over the island for Link, from the Legend of Zelda. There are enemies attacking me, they look like some kind of piggish orc or something like that… I have a sword and shield, I am able to fend off their attacks. I am cutting down the attackers as they come. Finally there is a break in the attacks, and I am able to search the island for Link. No sign of him. I go to a dock and get on a small ship and I head to the next island. I know Link should be somewhere in this area, somewhere in this little group of islands. So I search the islands one by one, fighting my way through each of the islands… but I still have not found any sign of Link. I am getting quite worried now, thinking I might not be able to find him at all. This quest might end with epic failure. I am standing on a high cliff overlooking the ocean below when a strange old man walks up to me. He is a short and fat old man, wearing a really ratty hat and an otherwise nice suit. He says he knows what I am looking for, or rather who. He says Link is in the underwater kingdom of the merfolk. He says their kingdom is directly down below, in the deep ocean. I look down off the cliff and into the water. I think I can just jump down into the water and I can swim down and find Link. I ask the man if the water below is deep enough to jump into, but before he even answers I say to hell with it and jump out as far as I can. I plunge into the deep water and swim down from there, heading down into the depths. Merpeople of some kind are interfering, attacking me with spears, I fight back with my sword, though it is a bit harder to do underwater.

I can breathe underwater just fine. I swim into some caverns below, into one big underwater chamber. There is a bubble of air in the center of the chamber and Link is in that bubble. I fight my way through some more merpeople until I reach the bubble.

I take out a ring of waterbreathing like the one in DDO, and I give it to Link. A bubble of air forms around his head, somewhere I find an extra sword to give Link, and we are able to fight our way out of the cavern together and make it to the surface. We are get out of the water and onto one of the islands, the merpeople can do nothing but float in the water and throw curses at us.

Plans: Nomad wasn't acting like himself in chat today, and I know I have been depressed lately… MoSh said he could also use some healing, so the main plan for the night was to do a group healing with the three of us. Other plans took a bit of a back seat for the night.

A Healing Mist
I am in the biodome with Basara. Most of the depression I often feel in waking life is no longer with me, Basara currently has his arms around me to comfort me.

I am there in Basara's arms for a short time before a portal he says that if we're going to do a healing we need to be sure everyone is here. I open a portal to MoSh's inner world and go through it. On the other side of the portal I find MoSh wandering around outside the house and calling out to Asuka. I don't see Asuka in the area, so I start searching for Asuka with MoSh, I call out for her as well. I focus on opening a portal to find Asuka, then I lead MoSh through the resultant portal. It turns out Asuka is in the biodome near the healing hot springs. I leave MoSh there with Asuka and focus on a portal to find Nomad. He is in the mountains of the biodome speeding down the slopes on a pair of skis? I don't think I have ever seen him skiing. So I meet up with MoSh, Asuka, and Basara back at the healing springs. We all do healing spells together, and the area fills with golden energy. A soothing mist rises off of the water and surrounds all of us as the healing spells take their effect.


All For Nothing
I am working at the data center in a hospital just like I have had to do in the past, I am working on one of many computer terminals hooked up to the servers there. Even though there are many other people there and many free computers available, it seems I am the only one doing any work there. I find this to be really annoying. The only bright side is I have a really cool computer terminal to work at, a fancy one that has a lot of power behind it and three screens showing a lot of data.

Right now I need to be pulling up some information and printing it out for the nightly reports. I click a few different things and pull up what I think is the report I need, then I click for it to print. The printer springs to life, but the data it prints out is the wrong report. It is not what I told the printer to print, not even vaguely related. I try again, and it prints a bunch more crap that has nothing to do with what I want. This is getting frustrating, and I have the idea the other people in the room know how to fix things, but instead of helping, they are sitting around making fun of the fact I can't properly print out the nightly report. I am very frustrated with being here, does this mean that the time I spent getting my Bachelor's Degree was completely wasted?