Wednesday 24 February 2010

The Carnival Assignment Dream

Last night I had a long shift at apple, I was working until midnight, which isn't too bad, but I had started at three, and at 6 when the shop shut I had to move my car and then start a moving, shifting, chancing, swapping shift. It was fine. Just a lot of physical labour.

I got home about 12:30 and watched some ladies cross, which was crazy. They were like little rabbits bouncing up the hills, it was kind of awesome. Then I did some bobsleigh and went to bed.

My dreams were even quite the labour. The last dream I had was amazing. The detail, and the story were kind of gripping. It was good. The more I think about it though, the more I realise where I got the ideas from.

I'll start from the beginning of where I remember.

I was with a few family members, my mum and cousin kate included down near the train station outside my house.

as if from no where strange buildings and hedges appeared. They were like large hedge mazes, with stone work in the middle of each of the hedge squares. The entire landscape around the train station had changed and I was pretty baffled by the whole thing and was like 'what on earth are those things.' My mum said 'I don't know' which was very intuitive of her.

We walked around the front of them for a second and found an opening that was a bridge across the train track. There was a huge corridor not unlike an airport corridor with lots of people spread so far apart that it seemed like very few people. I crossed over and when I reached the other side there was a stair case, a very non-committed, weak stair case, identical to the ones you get on rides at carnivals. Because it was one. There were red and yellow lights flashing from below and I had to queue on the stairs to get down. I was handed one yellow ticket, with a number on it. The number corresponded to a person and a time and a place, that I just knew.

At this point of my 'movie dream' I was afforded the knowledge that my cousin, and my sister had both been here, and done this.

Kate's story was that she'd been there a day or so before, and she didn't have much time to be freed. The number we were given when entering, corresponded to a person that had to die before 5pm that day. I was filled with images of Kate completing her task and burying the body of her victim under a tree.

Lola hadn't been there too long and she was just wandering still.

I got into the carnival area only to find that it wasn't a carnival, it was life, it was another world. But it was always a holiday. The sun was out, there were amazing shops, there were amazing restaurants, and millions of leisure activities. It was like a package holiday, for free, forever. There were hundreds and hundreds of people just everywhere, happy and just having the best time of their life because they didn't have to work or do normal life things.

I didn't find it fun at all. In fact I was bored with it, and so I was able to see it for what it was. It was like a huge slaughter house and battery for the man that had started the weird colony. He was powered by the fun and enjoyment of other people.

After doing some super sleuthing I located this man and had a show down with him where I realised that it was 'fun' that gave him strength. I remember jumping around him shouting 'I'm not having fun, i'm not having fun.' Which meant I was free to go before the 5pm lock down time. I obtained some kind of document from him that was like my birth certificate and other things. I also located kate and brought her with me. Now, I remember there being two bodies buried under the tree, so I'm not sure if I completed my task or not. I'm not sure.

I went to the 'check out desk' (like an airport or hotel) and the woman wanted to see my yellow ticket, she approved it, and I showed her the other documents that I had gotten from the guy in charge of everything and then she let me go.

I was then back at my house, because this place was right outside my house, and I had my mum and kate with me and we were going back in to rescue Lola before 5pm. I was packing tonnes of stuff in my bag that we might need for an adventure. Which is something I always do, I always over pack. I had water, and rope, and tonnes of different documents like birth certificates and proof that Lola belonged to us.

We then started to venture back in, and at the top of the stairs the story changed, and my friend Kyle was the main character. We started following Kyle about as he worked out the challenges of the world and what it all meant. He went though the same story as I did, and then made it to the check out desk. When he handed over his yellow ticket, which is the most important part of needing to get out of the world, the woman said, 'Oh but you didn't complete your task.' And Kyle said 'They didn't show up at the time or in the place.' And the woman behind the desk told him 'They always show up, they can't not show up, they have an appointment to keep.' And then Kyle told her that sometimes they don't, if they change their mind about where they want to be or what they want from life. And there was a flash back cut to Kyle finding his assignment and talking to the man for a long time persuading him about his course of life so he wouldn't show up and so Kyle didn't have to kill him.

At this point the movie continued, but we panned out and I was sitting in a cinema watching it with all my family.

I looked back up at the screen and Tom Cruise appeared as the credits were rolling, he was doing a 'making of' presentation, and I exclaimed 'Of course, Tom Cruise had to be behind this kind of movie.' He started talking about how it was based on a true story because long ago someone had tried to use the method of 'assignments' to kill Joseph Smith in the past, and because of the death of Joseph Smith the Mormon church was created.

I don't know how that part ended because my brother started getting hit with sweets and a couple of seats down from us this girl from YSA in Dundee was sitting throwing stuff at him. That's her personality, quite the young, hyper kind of girl.

And about this point I decided enough was enough and I woke up.





I can actually see where a lot of the ideas have come from:

Dead Like Me — has the death assignment one
Heroes — for the carnival with someone that gets more powerful the more people are there
Heroes — again for the blood shed aspect
Spirited away — Also a carnival idea, and the visuals with the hedges were based on that


and my Visa application for the entire 'paperwork' aspect of things, having to hold on to scraps of paper, and show certificates to prove something.

Wednesday 17 February 2010

The worst swimming session ever

Because of my current line of work I've been ill pretty much every week since October. It's not fun. Touching gross ipods and iPhones and then touching our own machines in store that other grotty kids or people lacking in good hygiene have been touching. I sanatize often, but nothing seems to prevent the amount of sickness i've experience. Because of the sicknesses I've not been swimming in a long long time.

I went this afternoon, making this the third time in seven months that i've been in a swimming pool.

Now the past couple of days at work have been horrific, there's a mid-term school holiday, and for some reason the Apple store is the place to be. We have been babysitting for the past four days. We usually babysit at the weekends anyway, but this week has been horrible. Having to deal with kids rudely shouting at us to ask for help in emailing their lame Photo Booth pictures to themselves, and having to shut down porn sites after kids put porn on the screen and run away. It's actually horrific.


Anyway, today I thought I would go swimming. I've been feeling a bit better, and no impending sickness feels like it's heading my way. The last time I spoke to the doctor I suggested to her that as well as continuing on my inhalers (oh yeah, she gave me inhalers because my lungs have had enough of being ill and I have terrible chest pain reoccuring) that I would start swimming again to strengthen my vital organs.

So I went. I got there, I paid... FULL price I might add, and full price is about 30 minutes of working at apple. Got changed and then noticed that the 'fun pool' was closed and every child, off school today was in the big pool. I also noticed the kids off school. What a rookie mistake nad oversight. I thought I would be going at a calm time. But no.

Immediately after sitting my stuff down near where a lady was already doing some slow, head out of the water, breast stroke lengths, she shouted 2/3rds of the way down the pool at me "Excuse Me." So when she got close, I was like 'Yes...?" to which she said 'I'm swimming here.' To which I said "well, i'm going to swim next to you."

She was most afronted, and I didn't mean to be cheeky, but two people doing lengths in an area is better than one because it is more intimidating for the kids.

She swam away, then stood at the other end of the pool eyeing me up waiting for me to move, then she moved to the other side to make some kind of point. Weird.

After about 14 lengths half the pool got shut off. So 30+ people were crammed into half a pool, with no order or discipline. There were kids jumping in the pool (which is an international no-no I'm sure) and a lot of general disrespect. The thing is, I don't mind kids, they're having fun. There was just too many people jammed in that side of the pool.

The lady that had shouted at me previously gave me an apology and explanation and a very long story, which kept cutting into swim time.

I tried to keep going, but eventually when the pool reached 45-50 people in it. I had to stop. I was scared of getting jumped on and ending up paralysed or worse ending up hurting a kid. I don't swim super fast, but I don't swim super slow either, and my concentration isn't on who's in my way, it's on my muscle movement. So I could end up really hurting someone, especially when I have my hard plastic paddles on.

I stopped 4 lengths from finishing my first Kilometre, some more adults started appearing and they were outraged, I finally asked if we could be allocated a separate lane, the lifeguard went to ask permission and then I finished my kilometre proving a point that it was dangerous. The lifeguard informed me that it was too busy to put another lane in and that the kids would just sit on it. Hmmmm.

I got out.

I am livid. I'm 40 lengths down and 30 minutes of apple time out of pocket. I'm not happy. I think that's what made me mad the most is that when I was a student I could pay £4.50 and get in swimming for the entire year for free.

If I was unemployed or on benefits of any kind I could also get the same deal. But because I work, because I am not lazy or churning out kids for cash from the government I have to pay for the entire operation of the pool even although my local taxes are paying for that anyway. It's disgusting. Sincerly Britain is one of the only countries that you can make more money by being on benefits than you can by working.

The 'From the Cradle to the Grave' theory was implemented in the 1940s. I think it's time we called it dead, we tried it, it worked, it's now failing, and move on to something better.

I totally understand that some people are completely worthy of benefits, but the people that are lazy, or the people that claim sick benefit when they're actually recovering Heroine addicts, those are the ones that bother me. And the ones that have kids just so they don't have to work, so they get money from the government and have their house paid for. Those are the ones that need to be stopped. Seriously. It just breeds misery and depression and then boredom and violence and crime. The country is a disaster. The NHS is kind of nice though.

I also think, and this is quite controversial, that if you were to remove child benefit from those that have kids to get such benefits, then the crime rate, in about 12 years would deplete greatly. It's like that study written about in Freakonomics. The crime rate in New York didn't drop because of policing, it dropped because abortion became legal. now i'm not encouraging abortion, but I just think that if people weren't getting paid to have kids they would take contraception seriously, and thus prevent rather than terminate, and therefore kids that would have been born into poverty, misery and sloth wouldn't be, and then boredom, and crime would also vanish.



Oh so the stats.


200m FC
200m BS
200m FC Legs
200m FC arms
100m BS legs
100m BS arms
Then i gave up. Sad.

Dreams

Recently I've been having some messed up dreams and a half.

Last night I started in ireland with my family and somehow got separated from them and was then kicking about with two people I went to Art school with. The two would never be friends in real life, but I was walking them home and they were saying that after our three years out we still had to go back and finish our honours year but they weren't going to do it because work was more important than the qualification. I told them I was going back to finish and I felt more like it was because I was not succeeding as a designer, but I didn't want them to know that so I told them it was because qualifications and paper matter because it's what sets us apart. But then, right before they were back at their flat I remembered I was moving and I was like 'Oh, i'm immigrating, I suppose I can't finish.' And that was the end of that.

The night before I had a dream that Jon was a hit man superhero. He was actually so awesome. So intelligent and smart at getting the job done. He had special powers of strength and agility and he was also this broody quiet character. My path and his kept meeting. It was like he was looking after me, but from afar.

In one scene of the dream he asked me to get him a pair of trousers. So I was using my super power (which was the same as Claire Bennett's from heroes — the power to regenerate) to get the trousers, which was really me just running up and trying to grab them. It was a whole suit meant to be. But I could only get the trousers, then some other guy was tugging at them and then Jon appeared and helped and essentially 'did it himself'. I then had to meet him in a hotel with the trousers, and somehow, i'm vague on the details, some random guy got 'taken care of' by Jon. So we had to leave the hotel room and he sent me off to do other errands because he was too dangerous to be around. I was then in a house with a guy that had a power and his wife was going to call an ambulance but he was protesting and I protested and I wanted to show him my power that we were the same, but the home help also had powers and she subtlety said don't you two talk about anything, you don't know who's listening, or something to that effect.

I then looked out the window and saw Jon, down the bottom of a cliff by a river hanging out a red sports car dumping a body. He was so smart, and so brave, and so unstoppable. He was clever. he always knew what items he had to bring to make an assignment go to plan.



The night before that my dream was about the oscars being in Glasgow. I was given someone's plus one ticket because a journalist couldn't attend. My old friend from high school took the main ticket then I was her plus one. I was at work finishing off a late shift before heading to the ceremony. Right before the shift ended one of the managers came up with a box of opened but unused iPhones. he said 'I'm going to throw these out, do you want them... take them.' So I took one, then no one else took one, so I took another for Jon. They were both Black at the back though and I thought that was odd because i've always thought I'd get a black one.

I then went to the Oscar's and all these people kept thinking I was this guy journalist that couldn't be there... but I wasn't.


The funny thing is, that it is more likely that the Oscars would be held in Scotland than Apple giving away iPhones to the staff.



Another day I dreamed that there was an evacuation and a bomb in london. The Nazi's were coming and i was terrified and didn't know where to go. I was totally alone and couldn't get a bus or a taxi or a train out of there. All these British soldiers just kept appearing telling me to evacuate because there was an invasion. Then my sister and niece appeared and I was worried they would slow me down and depend on me to get them out of there. The last thing I remember was crouching by a bridge as all the Nazis crossed into london and I just hoped they wouldn't be interested in me.



In Another dream I was in some kind of diner/ice cream parlour in Dundee. The details of that one are vague, but there was paper involved.



In another dream I was involved in an occult sacrifice with Satan, there were loads of Nuns around and then there was a baby born in a hospital and I went down to see it.

I really worried about that dream for a day, but then I got over it.


In another dream I was engaged to someone I went to art school with, although they were meant to be Jon, but not really. But then the person just vanished and wouldn't text me back or answer my phone calls, and all my class mates were like... he just wanted to give you clean break, it's better this way.


In another gory dream loads of people had powers like in heroes and sylar, who didn't look like sylar, and I kind of had a thing for was on the rampage. He slaughtered loads of people in this house and I was looking for places to hide. he kept killing people in front of me. And finally he stopped. I was worried he was going to kill me, but it turned out I had never been mean to him. I specifically remember seeing people I knew from years ago dead on the ground with blood everywhere.



In another dream jon and I were in Ireland and there was a movie being filmed and there were characters that were meant to be Jon and Me, but then movie character Jon dumped movie character Vikki as part of the plot. Then the movie was meant to turn into something like saw, which I've never seen, but I know that the premise is something to do with self harming to escape from an unideal situation.



In another I was meant to be meeting an old friend but everytime I showed up at their house they weren't in, and they would go to my house and I wasn't in, and it was a frustrating disaster.



In another I was with Toni, Eilidh, and Toni's husband and then these mobsters were coming for us through a garden fence and i started to peg it with eilidh out through the close because we were in a back garden. Then I felt bad for leaving toni, then Eilidh and I got chased, and he was going to totally abuse us, but then i told him we were lesbians and he went away. Then I felt wretched for leaving Toni.



I think that's it for the weird freaky dreams. I have one every night, so I should really write more about them. They are crazy. Most of them are pretty much about people I've not seen in a long time from the past, about Jon, or about terrifying things. I might need to change my diet.

I actually do look up certain symbols in dreams, because I find it really interesting, and they are actually a lot more skewed than obvious. Blood in a dream is supposed to symbolise guilt I think, and babies are to do with renewal of life and changing life, and lesbianism is to do with being happy about certain characteristics of the self.

http://www.dreammoods.com/

That's the website I tend to use the most. I love just looking up random objects of things from my dreams and seeing if it is at all relevant.

The S Stand Appeal

Okay here's my problem.

I sell and talk a lot about these:






Now.

When i talk about the stand part of the iPhone there is a word. Look at how it works. The stand is just a piece of plastic shaped like an S. This can only stand the iPhone up because of the weight distribution of the phone. The phone leans into the arch of the s, pushing the furthest away point into the table.

My problem is that there is a word for this, and I cannot, for the life of me think of what that word is.

I've heard the word used before in regards to self-defence because a lot of the martial arts use the limited agility of bones — bones can only bend in a certain way and if you bend someone's arm-bone in a certain way they will be forced to release their grip on you. Or something like that.

I have an appeal... help me find this word.

Words it is not:

Ergonomics
Leverage

Monday 8 February 2010

can't Stop



I heard this song on Rock Radio the other day and totally remembered that, when i was wee, I used to think the line 'I can't stop this thing we started' was 'I can't stop this thing with MARTY'

Now, who is marty? I'm not sure. Marty McFly?

Anyway... I remembered and it made me laugh.

I've not been about because my laptop was at the apple store from Friday last last week until Thursday last week. Crazy. 6 days. I found myself using my mothers 13inch baby a lot. The 13inch was nice. It was weird going back to massive BRAND NEW SCREEN. That's right, under the Apple Care Protection Plan I got my screen replaced. Not just the LCD Panel but the entire part. So half my laptop is brand new. :)

They also cleaned out my fans, so now it doesn't sound like a helicopter, and they must have cleaned out my firewire port too, because it now works with my WD hard drive. 5 years warranty on that thing, crazy.

Anyway.

I have spray paint in my lungs, on my thumb and on some of my bracelets, so it might be time to retire to bed. That and Jon is unavailable this weekend for chat. So I'm rendered unsure what to do with the time.

Jon is hitting up the Potato state with his family for the second to newest edition's blessing. he sent me a cheeky wee image of Caleb last night, which could melt hearts. I totally wish I had been able to go to the blessing. For some reason, things like blessings, because they are impromptu (non-holiday) family gatherings, always seem to attract me. I think it's the sincerity involved, people are there because they want to be, not because it's Christmas or Thanksgiving and they have to be. The gist is, I wish I was there to get to know Jon's family better, and to meet Caleb... and witness some priesthood action... I've always had a thing for watching priesthood power. :):):)

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