newnumber6 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
newnumber6) wrote2007-02-16 01:54 pm
newnumber6) wrote2007-02-16 01:54 pm
Entry tags:
Some more random thoughts and other stuff
Dream Foo over the last couple weeks. Some Office, some Battle Royale, some semi-lucidity:
Lessee.... had a Battle Royale dream, except in this one you didn't have to leave the school right away. So me and another kid and a teacher (who was somehow part of the game) were trying to sneak around through the school to do or get something that would help. We had to crawl through the ventalation shafts. There was also a part set outside not involving us, but I can't recall what happened.
I had a strange semi-lucid dream. Semi-lucid because I knew it was a dream, but somehow I didn't grok all the consequences of that. See, the dream started out with me either having committed a crime or thinking that I'd been suspected of committing one (can't remember which, or the crime). Then I realized it was a dream. And instead of saying 'Oh, well, forget this plotline, let's go fly or try cool things' like I usually do, I was worried that, when I _woke up_, I might still be accused of the crime. So, in typical dream logic, I figured that first I had to kill myself in the dream world, so I could 'start fresh'. Except that was easier said than done, while lucid. I ran out in front of a car and got hit, but I didn't get hurt. I think part of me was temporarily flattened, but that's it. Then I created a huge cliff and threw myself off it, but I didn't get hurt when I hit the ground (nice view, though). I think I tried a couple other times but then I woke up naturally.
Last night I had a more true lucid dream but I woke up before I could do anything with it - started in my room and I couldn't get outside before I woke up. Technically I should probably practice teleporting to get out of situations like that, but I never seem to remember in those first few seconds.
Also last night, I had a dream about The Office. Except instead of an office, it was a supermarket, or part supermarket. And one of Michael's new brilliant ideas was that there'd only be one variety of everything. Only one cleaner would be sold, only one type of chicken wings, only one brand and flavour of ice cream, etc. And the rest of the employees, me included, were walking around in the aftermath. Someone (Jim?) was complaining about the cookies or cakes he liked being gone and I said something like, "I feel your pain, man... the chip section's coming up next."
One weird snatch of conversation:
"Dwight, did you just lick my hand?"
"On my worst day I'm better than you on your best day."
"... That didn't really answer my question."
"I hear that a lot." or "I've been told that." or somthing to that effect.
End of Dream Foo.
So, finished up my third Writing cycle on Tuesday. Went fairly well, met my quotas. Sort of finished a story too. I say sorta because I brought it to an ending, but I don't feel like it was the right ending... but I don't know what the right ending is, so until I do that's how it's going to be. Also worked on a couple other short stories.
TV. No significant spoilers. Lost finally turned in an episode I fully enjoyed this week. Best of the season. Still not saying a whole lot, but at least it's the best of the season, and completely unexpected - from the previews, I thought the ep was going to suck. Grey's Anatomy's been pretty good these last two weeks too. Stargate was fun, bit of an obvious plot but they make me enjoy it as they often do. VM was pretty good, and they're getting very close to having a perfect Runaways cast having appeared on the show. ;) And speaking of The Office in dream foo, stolen from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thebitterguy... a blog by a lawyer about how much Dunder-Mifflin could be sued for in each episode.
Heroes looks to be getting better than is was immediately after the hiatus. And BSG had a good but obviously 'filler' episode. But then I like Helo. But I'm getting annoyed at those 'extra scenes available only online'. Especially when I've tried watching some and they didn't work for me, and when they refer to them in the ep (Unless I'm misremembering, I think one of them was in the 'Previously on BSG...' this week).
Book Foo: Finished: Hyperion, by Dan Simmons (reread)
Started: Fall of Hyperion, by Dan Simmons (reread)
Still Reading: Stardoc by S.L. Viehl
Thoughts and a quote behind the cut. A warning, some particularly devout and sensitive religious people might want to skip this part.
I think this was my first reread, and this time around I got more out of it. The first time, some of the stories bored me, but this time I found all of them entertaining. The first time I think the story of Rachel was the one I liked best, and it's still powerful, but this time I think it was the Detective's Tale that I enjoyed most this time around, because it did one of the things I like in SF - seamlessly integrate a whole bunch of SF concepts into one whole future universe. The other stories (and the overarching plot) all did this to some degree, but the Detective's Stale did it best.
Still, it's from the Scholar's Tale that my chosen quote comes:
Sol wanted to know how any ethical system--much less a religion so indomitable that it survived every evil mankind could throw at it--could flow from a command from God for a man to slaughter his son. It did not matter to Sol that the command had been rescinded at the last moment. It did not matter that the command was a test of obedience. In fact, the idea that it was the obedience of Abraham which allowed him to become the father of all the tribes of Israel was precisely what drove Sol into fits of fury.
After fifty-five years of dedicating his life and work to the story of ethical systems, Sol Weintraub had come to a single, unshakable conclusion: any allegience to a deity or concept or universal principle which put obedience above decent behavior towards an innocent human being was evil.
The book (and, as I recall, though I haven't reached it yet, the sequel), attempts to provide some answers to this problem, but none of them (again, as I recall) really satisfied me to the basic problem. While I could plausibly believe in the existence of a deity who would do such a thing, I can't call it 'good'. Particularly a proposed all-powerful deity. A semi-powerful deity who needed to make the point that obedience was important unless you know the reasoning, maybe, but it'd still be a scummy thing to do. Or I could believe a semi-good deity who proposed that test with the purpose of punishing (as an object lesson) whoever didn't have the moral grounding to say 'no', okay. One more reason why even if I wasn't an atheist I probably wouldn't follow the general Judeo-Christian mythos with any degree of literal belief.
Let's see, what else. Had to talk to someone at children's aid yesterday. I do not like talking on the phone with people I don't know with little preparation. :P. Actually, you could cut that sentence down to 'I do not like talking on the phone'. You could possibly even get rid of 'on the phone', too. But ah well, it's over with.
The makers of the drug 'Vytorin' have a poor grasp of genetics, and thus I wouldn't trust any drug made by them. They say "Cholestorol might come from bow-tie pasta... or your Uncle Bo". No. That is incorrect. The only way my cholestorol might come from my Uncle Bo is if either Uncle Bo is actually my real dad, or I ate Uncle Bo. They're either stupid, or estimate the amount of cannibalism in their target market is high. Either way, I do not want to be associated with them. Okay, seems I misheard 'Grandpa' as 'Uncle'. Rant retracted. Still, there's an uncomfortably high cannibalism symbolism in that commercial. But I'll replace that with another commercial pissing me off. NO ELECTION HAS BEEN CALLED. PLEASE STOP WITH THE NEGATIVE CAMPAIGN ADS AGAINST THE LIBERAL LEADER. I mean, I could understand it (though would still be against it) if he was actually the Prime Minister. But he's not. And the constant ads are making me hate _you_ more. Wait till an election is called.
Speaking of commercials, Tandoori Sizzler nachos taste mostly like nachos covered in taco seasoning. Which isn't unpleasant, but is not as exotic as I was hoping. Ah well. Maybe the next new chip flavour will rock my world.
That's it for now.
Edit: Oh, and I've made my two rotating icon slots Runaways related, making everything except my default ghostly pic Runaways-related, until BKV's last issue.
Lessee.... had a Battle Royale dream, except in this one you didn't have to leave the school right away. So me and another kid and a teacher (who was somehow part of the game) were trying to sneak around through the school to do or get something that would help. We had to crawl through the ventalation shafts. There was also a part set outside not involving us, but I can't recall what happened.
I had a strange semi-lucid dream. Semi-lucid because I knew it was a dream, but somehow I didn't grok all the consequences of that. See, the dream started out with me either having committed a crime or thinking that I'd been suspected of committing one (can't remember which, or the crime). Then I realized it was a dream. And instead of saying 'Oh, well, forget this plotline, let's go fly or try cool things' like I usually do, I was worried that, when I _woke up_, I might still be accused of the crime. So, in typical dream logic, I figured that first I had to kill myself in the dream world, so I could 'start fresh'. Except that was easier said than done, while lucid. I ran out in front of a car and got hit, but I didn't get hurt. I think part of me was temporarily flattened, but that's it. Then I created a huge cliff and threw myself off it, but I didn't get hurt when I hit the ground (nice view, though). I think I tried a couple other times but then I woke up naturally.
Last night I had a more true lucid dream but I woke up before I could do anything with it - started in my room and I couldn't get outside before I woke up. Technically I should probably practice teleporting to get out of situations like that, but I never seem to remember in those first few seconds.
Also last night, I had a dream about The Office. Except instead of an office, it was a supermarket, or part supermarket. And one of Michael's new brilliant ideas was that there'd only be one variety of everything. Only one cleaner would be sold, only one type of chicken wings, only one brand and flavour of ice cream, etc. And the rest of the employees, me included, were walking around in the aftermath. Someone (Jim?) was complaining about the cookies or cakes he liked being gone and I said something like, "I feel your pain, man... the chip section's coming up next."
One weird snatch of conversation:
"Dwight, did you just lick my hand?"
"On my worst day I'm better than you on your best day."
"... That didn't really answer my question."
"I hear that a lot." or "I've been told that." or somthing to that effect.
End of Dream Foo.
So, finished up my third Writing cycle on Tuesday. Went fairly well, met my quotas. Sort of finished a story too. I say sorta because I brought it to an ending, but I don't feel like it was the right ending... but I don't know what the right ending is, so until I do that's how it's going to be. Also worked on a couple other short stories.
TV. No significant spoilers. Lost finally turned in an episode I fully enjoyed this week. Best of the season. Still not saying a whole lot, but at least it's the best of the season, and completely unexpected - from the previews, I thought the ep was going to suck. Grey's Anatomy's been pretty good these last two weeks too. Stargate was fun, bit of an obvious plot but they make me enjoy it as they often do. VM was pretty good, and they're getting very close to having a perfect Runaways cast having appeared on the show. ;) And speaking of The Office in dream foo, stolen from
thebitterguy... a blog by a lawyer about how much Dunder-Mifflin could be sued for in each episode. Heroes looks to be getting better than is was immediately after the hiatus. And BSG had a good but obviously 'filler' episode. But then I like Helo. But I'm getting annoyed at those 'extra scenes available only online'. Especially when I've tried watching some and they didn't work for me, and when they refer to them in the ep (Unless I'm misremembering, I think one of them was in the 'Previously on BSG...' this week).
Book Foo: Finished: Hyperion, by Dan Simmons (reread)
Started: Fall of Hyperion, by Dan Simmons (reread)
Still Reading: Stardoc by S.L. Viehl
Thoughts and a quote behind the cut. A warning, some particularly devout and sensitive religious people might want to skip this part.
I think this was my first reread, and this time around I got more out of it. The first time, some of the stories bored me, but this time I found all of them entertaining. The first time I think the story of Rachel was the one I liked best, and it's still powerful, but this time I think it was the Detective's Tale that I enjoyed most this time around, because it did one of the things I like in SF - seamlessly integrate a whole bunch of SF concepts into one whole future universe. The other stories (and the overarching plot) all did this to some degree, but the Detective's Stale did it best.
Still, it's from the Scholar's Tale that my chosen quote comes:
Sol wanted to know how any ethical system--much less a religion so indomitable that it survived every evil mankind could throw at it--could flow from a command from God for a man to slaughter his son. It did not matter to Sol that the command had been rescinded at the last moment. It did not matter that the command was a test of obedience. In fact, the idea that it was the obedience of Abraham which allowed him to become the father of all the tribes of Israel was precisely what drove Sol into fits of fury.
After fifty-five years of dedicating his life and work to the story of ethical systems, Sol Weintraub had come to a single, unshakable conclusion: any allegience to a deity or concept or universal principle which put obedience above decent behavior towards an innocent human being was evil.
The book (and, as I recall, though I haven't reached it yet, the sequel), attempts to provide some answers to this problem, but none of them (again, as I recall) really satisfied me to the basic problem. While I could plausibly believe in the existence of a deity who would do such a thing, I can't call it 'good'. Particularly a proposed all-powerful deity. A semi-powerful deity who needed to make the point that obedience was important unless you know the reasoning, maybe, but it'd still be a scummy thing to do. Or I could believe a semi-good deity who proposed that test with the purpose of punishing (as an object lesson) whoever didn't have the moral grounding to say 'no', okay. One more reason why even if I wasn't an atheist I probably wouldn't follow the general Judeo-Christian mythos with any degree of literal belief.
Let's see, what else. Had to talk to someone at children's aid yesterday. I do not like talking on the phone with people I don't know with little preparation. :P. Actually, you could cut that sentence down to 'I do not like talking on the phone'. You could possibly even get rid of 'on the phone', too. But ah well, it's over with.
Speaking of commercials, Tandoori Sizzler nachos taste mostly like nachos covered in taco seasoning. Which isn't unpleasant, but is not as exotic as I was hoping. Ah well. Maybe the next new chip flavour will rock my world.
That's it for now.
Edit: Oh, and I've made my two rotating icon slots Runaways related, making everything except my default ghostly pic Runaways-related, until BKV's last issue.