Dream: A Man Running
So I had a dream about this man. He was in his mid-40s about, and he had spent the last ten or so years of his life on the run. From the government or some other entity I'm not quite sure, but whoever it was found something unique about his body that was ripe for experimentation, and wanted to capture him to perform experiments on. At some point earlier, it seems they caught him once and implanted something like experimental organ growing materials or something like that (among the extra organs in his body was one human ovary, apparently), and so he was on the run to keep them from experimenting on his body more. Literally running.
Whoever this was after him had the technology to alter the terrain, and cause land form changes. They also had this long wall of concrete highway sound barriers on robotic legs that they could move around, moving it along and crushing things in its path or blocking long stretches of road as they wished to block his path and trap him in, so he had to continually run away from them, mostly on foot. Sometimes he managed to secure vehichles to go further distances, but at one point for example he was riding in a vehicle, trying to leave an area onto a highway, but this group after him managed to alter the land directly under the road and cause the road itself to move, impeding his travel, so he had to turn around and go back on the other side of the freeway, where a landslide had blocked off that road to prevent driving in the same direction on that one. The police coming to investigate the area found that, because of the slipping, a hundred meters or so were just dirt, with no asphalt or concrete on them at all.
They could track him most of the time, and he would duck in and out of houses and apartments and large commerical complexes to try to lose them and get a little reprieve so he could rest. In the ten or so years he had been running he had been all around the country, and it turns out he had brief affairs with various girls over the years in small periods he was able to rest, and fathered numerous children all over the country. It seemed they all were sympathetic to his plight, and had no problems with this. One house he ducked into while running even had one of these girls, who had since gotten married and had several more children, and she was happy to introduce the man to her husband as the father of her first child, and wanted to show him pictures of how the child had grown up, but he realized he had to get moving so the family wouldn't get further involved in the people chasing him.
Occasionally he would manage to evade them, and when they couldn't find him for a while they would send out these other searcher scouts, which looked like fat goblins but human sized. They had heightened senses of smell so they could track the man by smell, and would search in packs surrounding an area to track him down. They couldn't move very fast, though, so if he took off on a run again they wouldn't be able to chase him, and it would have to go back to the wall. Eventually, the man happened to drop into the house with his younger sister without realizing she lived there (he hadn't been able to keep up with his family since he was on the run), and she decided to join up with him and try to change things, and went and attacked the goblins when they showed up. They were all carrying large bats as weapons, and it turned out when they were hit with their own bats they would die immediately, so they attacked and killed all the goblins and he was able to get away without a lead to gain some more reprieve.
Date posted: 18 December, 2013Tags: dream
Oh, Right, This Thing Again
Oh hey, it's NaNoWriMo time again. And this time I've been so busy between that and other projects I'm working on right now that I haven't had any chance up to now to post anything here about it, and now I'm done.
Well, not done, exactly. I've reached the goal, hit 50K words last night, but I'm not done yet. I've just started into the third and final act of the story, so I still have a while more to write before I'm done. After that I have I'm really not happy with most of the firsrt act and it will take some extensive rewriting. So first I've got to work on finishing the story, then working on the editing from there.
This story's not based on anything else I already wrote, it's a brand new story. This story is one that just came to me pretty much all at once while driving earlier this year, March 26 according to the page date in my OneNote, and once I had the idea I knew it would make a great story, so pulled over and quickly wrote it all down, then didn't look at the page again after that, titling it "(don't read until nanowrimo)". I wanted to do it the same way I did it last year, just grabbing a story I hadn't thought about for a long time before that and diving right in. Unlike how long it took to name the book last year, I had a title for the book from the beginng. Titled "It's Midnight When It's Raining", that title came from a small phrase that came to me in the middle of the night in September that seemed like some secret codephrase when I thought of it, so I worked into the story: It's midnight when it's raining, blood rose tips the sun.
Date posted: 28 November, 2013Tags: nanowrimo personal writing
Dream: Life Reruns
I had a dream last night that I met up with a friend of mine from elementary school, whatever she had done with her life she had a Masters degree now (not sure in what) and was living well. Then something happened, not sure what, which reverted us back to being kids in 3rd grade, back in time to 1993. We still had all our regular knowledge, though. There didn't seem to be any way to reverse our predicament, so we had to ride it out.
We had to work carefully to avoid being perceived as hypergeniuses (being two 8 year olds with the minds of adults that were very knowledgeable in advanced fields and extensive knowledge of the future), but we couldn't avoid things like becoming the best students in our grade still. In secret we still did stuff in our fields (and like I was working on a new sci-fi novel) and were trading floppy disks back and forth with stuff written up. We didn't want to radically change history and draw huge attention to ourselves for fear of media or government radically interrupting our lives for our "super-brains", but we did intend to quitely invest in the stock market in places that needed to be put in to get us a good amount of money for when we graduated high shcool again and became adults again.
Date posted: 14 October, 2013Tags: dream
Movie Mini-Review Roundup III
So it's been a long time since I last did this, and the list of films I've watched since the last time has grown to be enormous. This is just about 1/3 of what all I have watched, so it will have to come in multiple parts. And I had to drop a few out because I don't even remember anything about them anymore, and some of them I had seen in theatre and since bought them on disc after they were released for home video.
they live
this is the cult classic John Carpenter film about aliens being in control of human society. well worth the watch
hannibal
this film's the last in the Hannibal timeline, taking place about ten years after Silence of the Lambs with Hopkins reprising his role as an escaping Lecter. I thought the movie was decent for the genre, but it is verybrutal, and definitely not for the squeamish... or even the not so squeamish, the last act is quite disturbing
sunshine
so Sunshine's quite an amusing premise - the sun is dying, and people need to jump start it. if you put aside the "science" aspect of it and just focus on the characters, i thought it wasnt too bad just on that one alone
season of the witch
Nicholas Cage (and Ron Perlman!) starring in a movie about the Crusades and the Black Death, with some witches too. was rather bland really, but one of the few things I've seen with Perlman live action
gits: sss
now I've mentioned before I didn't like the original Ghost in the Shell movie much, but really couldn't very well explain why, though I guessed it might be because the difference from it and Stand Alone Complex (which I haven't seen all of, but I had started into before watching the original film). this film fits in the Stand Alone Complex series, so I guess because of that I did enjoy this one much more
red dragon
this is a prequel to Silence of the Lambs, also with Hopkins reprising his role as a newly captured Lecter. this one didn't really have as lasting an impression on me as Hannibal did really, so I can't say much more about it
the expendibles
this movie is just about grabbing all the old 80s-90s action movie stars and throwing them together in a super-star movie. pretty fun to watch. some of them have aged a lot better than Stallone some of the others
the philadelphia experiment
old film take of the legend surrounding the Philadelphia Experiment, making it into a time travel movie. don't really remember much about it beyond that either, but the trailer I've linked pretty much sums up the entire movie beginning to end without missing much
arietty
Studio Ghibli take on the Borrowers story. at this point I must say to really watch it as intended you really need a real nice surround sound setup, as I watched it in theatre and they did some phenomenal work on the sounds for the film and the way things sound to the Borrowers.
in time
this film I really enjoyed, not much else I can say there. I haven't bought it, but it is something I want to buy at some point.
cabin in the woods
now I don't normally watch horror movies, so this wasn't even on my radar. but based on some comments I saw online this wasn't the typical sort of horror movie, so I went and saw it out of curiousity. and I'm glad I saw this, because they were definately right, and I loved the movie. I bought it as soon as it came out on blu-ray.
battleship
now Battleship's an interesting tale. most people probably pass it off because it seems like it might be some lame Transformers ripoff somehow shoehorned into being like the Battleship game. everyone that I talked to that did actually sit down and watch it, though, enjoyed it much more than they were expecting, and most of them tend to agree with me on this point about the movie: this was only called Battleship because Hollywood is currently afraid of trying new IP, and this movie could have been released exactly as cut under a different name and hardly anyone would even think of the game Battleship at all. I really enjoyed this movie, and i bought it as soon as it came to disc. also, Liam Neeson.
primer
this is a rather hard to follow independent time travel film, that addresses the paradox of having multiple copies of yourself in the same place when traveling to the past. it was decent, but you have to really pay attention to it
the taste of tea
I don't remember where exactly I saw this and what made me decide to watch it, but it was probably a screenshot of one of the really strange visuals from the film posted somewhere out of context. it was kind of interesting to watch, but certainly strange
mib3
yes, they did decide to make a third Men In Black film. but I thought this one was much better than the second, by far, bringing it back close to the level of the first one in quality.
the grey
oh Liam Neeson, showing off his "set of skills" once again. this time against some oddly extra-intelligent wolves (it seemed to me anyway). this was a great movie, and I bought it once it came to disc.
DRK rises
conclusion to Nolan's Batman series, and closing out the trilogy. I loved this film, and bought it as soon as it came out.
the last lovecraft
now I'm not really into Lovecraft's mythos, so I really don't know much about the backgrounds being used in the film. but I thought it was amusing enough in its own right. this was something I actually saw the trailer for when it was first released but never heard anything from it again,
saw
first Saw film. only one I've seen. I've heard mixed things about it being drawn out and getting worse and worse with each progressive one and not, but I only really wanted to see the first one anyway (see the forementioned lack of caring for horror films, as well as the series' general lead into turning horror into a torture porn fest), and only then because I wanted to see the original work as it was inspired by Mad Max
layer cake
Daniel Craig and Colm Meany both in this crime thriller, about a drug dealer looking to retire. I found it quite enjoyable
ghost rider 2
look at that, Nicholas Cage back with a sequel to Ghost Rider. except its really not much of a sequel as it has nothing to do with the first story. I thought it was interesting to watch, but I wouldn't be in any hurry to watch it again
safe house
this one doesn't have a real trailer (so I just linked to a funny clip from it), as it was just a made for TV movie I think, but this film has Patrick Stewart as a retired intelligence officer growing old and paranoid about people out to get him. it was quite enjoyable, and Stewart does a great job in his role
predators
so I had never actually watched any of the Predator franchise before this. I saw the trailer in theatre and the trailer I saw didn't show any Predators until near the end, but the trailer made it look like some sort of sci-fi version of The Most Dangerous Game even before the franchise was shown. I had to see it from that, and it did not disappoint, but I didn't end up getting a chance to see it until it was available for rent
transformers 3
transformers 3 was by far better than transformers 2. which really isnt saying much of course because that one was just bad
taken 2
I enjoyed this just as much as the first one. and bought it once it came out on blu-ray, of course
war games
got the urge to rewatch this on a whim, since it had been a very long time since I had seen it.
war games dead code
someone apparently decided the original movie needed a modern sequel. and because not just that, but they needed to tie it in with the original movie, it goes from being another neat thing built on the same idea as the original to an absolutely ridiculous plot
skyfall
while it appears the MGM shutdown caused Skyfall to no longer be continuing the story that began with Casino Royale, I must say that Skyfall absolutely blew me away and is at this point easily my favorite Bond movie period.
2001
2001 is long, very long. honestly, i was falling asleep watching it and had to pause it to resume later, but I did enjoy watching it
Tags: movies
Dream: Exelia's Strange Adventures
First of all, I spent this entire dream not as myself, but as Exelia Antonov, the character I play in the MMO Final Fantasy XIV. I guess this dream kind of took place in the world of XIV, but... not really? So it started out with me hearing about this place a friend of mine had been to before (in the old version of the game), and I was in the area that it was located and found it: this giant multi-story building that was supposed to have a whole bunch of things in it. So I went in to check it out and take pictures to put up on the internet about it (carrying my real-life Lumia 920 to take the photographs).
So the entrance to the building was like a convention center like place, with different halls linked off of it. The higher floors required security card access (there was a card scanner in the elevator leading upstairs), so I couldn't enter them, but I had heard from inside I could get a security card forged. So I went to sneak in, which required going through this area with this laser security system. I met up with a few other people going to sneak in there, and we all entered the room with the security system. It was a statue on the wall, with a face that would rotate in and out, and if the face detected significant movement or if someone looked at it it would fire a laser that would destroy them.
Since you couldn't look at it without being lasered either, they weren't sure how they'd be able to tell if it was active or not, until I noticed that some small indicator on another wall showed the status of the security system, so I directed them on when to move and we all got through without injury and headed upstairs. I got my forged ID card, then went around taking photographs of the various things on that floor (which were mostly stores on that floor) while shopping for clothes and other stuff that could only be found there in that building.
At one point I stopped in a store at the end of a hallway on the top floor that didn't have anyone in there, was gutted, and had just construction stuff lying around. It had been apparently closed up and someone was going to remodel the space at somepoint, but hadn't gotten to it yet. So while I was walking around taking photographs of the inside of the shop, I neglected to see a black bear cub lying there sleeping, stepped on it, and it awoke angrily and started biting me. I kicked it off, grabbed this metal pole that was lying there and jammed its jaw open with it, and shoved the other end into something on the wall to hold it in place. Unfortunately, the mother bear was apparently on the other side of the far wall of the shop, and as I went to leave she came around and attacked me.
I ran down the hall with the bear chasing me, heading for the elevator. The lobby for that floor was a two-story room with the elevator on the floor below and a banister and stairs to walk around to get to the elevator. I jumped over the banister to the floor below and dived in the elevator, quickly trying to shut the door before the bear got there, but the bear stuck in its paw just before the door was closed completely and the sensor opened the door again. Somehow, I managed to wrestle the bear into the elevator and sent it down to the first floor, leaving me there, injured and torn clothing, so I went to change into new clothing.
Sometime later exploring I managed to activate a quest, where I had to assassinate the singer in this orchestra concert going on later that day. I went back downstairs to the first floor where the concert was happening in one of the event halls, and found it was like this formal attire to get in, with security with metal detector wands checking to make sure people didn't have weapons going into it. I didn't have any formal clothing so had to get some, and opted for something with pants with many pockets instead of a dress so I could carry some tools to assassinate the singer easier, and headed to the concert. Before I headed in I also grabbed a multitool and put it in my back pocket, thinking that somehow entering with that accidentally would make them not suspect me if they caught me near the killing later. I went in, they ran their metal detector over me and took the multitool, for which I apologized and made a minor scene of apparently having forgotten it was there. I then went in, as the concert was starting, and headed down to the lower platforms.
Apparently directly under the main seating of the concert all were a bunch of walkways that could see up to the performer's platform as you walked along, while lookign at the other scenery down there as well which was a bunch of huge museum like displays of different weather biomes. There were a bunch of people walking around down there so I didn't look out of place being the only one, so I walked along taking different photographs of these museum peices while heading toward a platform that was almost directly under the concert platform. As I walked along that path, I pulled out a small straw, and shot a tiny poisionous blowdart at the singer I was supposed to assasinate. It went into the bottom of her chin, where other people couldn't see it while she was singing I guess, and took a while to act, so I went back to photographing again so I wouldn't be nearby and suspicious when she finally died, and so I didn't leave early and waited until security evacuated everyone because that would be less suspicious as well.
Date posted: 21 September, 2013Tags: dream video_games