Deja Vu

I've always found that deja vu and a legitimate feeling of familiarity are completely different. A feeling of familiarity is just that, a sense, whether vague or strong, that you've experienced something before, whereas deja vu is much more intense, has an incredibly surreal component to it to the extent that it feels very foreign in comparison.
Yet every time I still wonder if it's happened before, even though I can differentiate the two. Hm. Oh well, jamais vu is much cooler anyway.

Favorite Villain Archetypes

The ones who claim that they're all about bringing order, and without them it would not exist.

Crescent Suns

So, I caught the total solar eclipse today. And I looked at it directly, for an extended period, because the only reason scientists say you shouldn't, is because it blesses you with superpowers. And they don't want that. But yes, a hawk flew overhead at the apex, so I guess I've got the powers of Ra now.

Subliminal Imperialism

Had a humorous train of thought today while thinking about national colors of various nations as well as flags.

"Wait, do you even know what India's flag looks like?"
"No, but I know what it should look like:"

Fun Fact

Yesterday was the first time I ever used the term meta-meta-murder mystery.

Strange Dream Quotes

"It's a frog that breathes fire! But only once a year, if conditions permit."
"It's a magical worm, eating it cures stage-fright."

Hyvä nähdä sinua!

Happy Day of Finnishness, everyone!

Full of Shame Fridays

Shameful admission: I have written fanfiction at a point in my life.

It is Important to Set Short-Term Goals

In one of the games I GM, I'd like to make all the NPC's names anagrams of my own. I wonder if anyone'd catch on.

Hawala

So, I recently learned about Hawala, via an online forum for a sci-fi roleplaying game. Yeah, it was one of those days; though now I'm wondering if there are any hawaladars in my area...

Things That Earn My... What's a Good Antonym for Ire?

That last post seemed kind of whiny. Did that seem whiny to anyone else?
So, I'll mention something I love, as a counterpoint:
The term bio-weapon. So good.

Things That Earn My Ire

I really don't like the culture of internet forums. There seems to be a sense of elitism based on who joined earlier, has the most posts, the flashiest signature, or forum awards/badges. Kind of obnoxious, really, and drowns out so many others who have genuinely insightful things to say, but have the misfortune of having joined only two months ago.

2012

I hope this whole doomsday craze results in some good post-apocalyptic movies. Kind of a stagnant genre.

Future Tech I Am Anticipating

A search engine that can, for example, find a film based on a description of this nature: "The one with that blond guy, from that sitcom a few years back who always made a face like this. There was a subplot about dragons in there, too. I can't really remember."

One Whole Month

So, I started this blog one month ago today. Or, yesterday, I think? So anyway, happy one month anni-blogger... Blogger-versar... Burger-Corsair.
Yeah.

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day, everybody. I plan to celebrate by being on the Earth.
And maybe also try to keep track of what day it is and when holidays occur, as I can only rely on Google's home page logo art changes so much.

Odd Fact

It seems all traditional Japanese lullabies are about how completely terrible crying children are, and how rad festivals are. Sounds about right.

How I Get My Ideas

I'm of the belief that anyone can have a good and original idea, just that inspiration has to strike them. But, inspiration is an often unreliable thing, so what to do when you need to come up with something but don't have the time to wait to be struck?
Well, here's what I do.

Method 1: Try to record ideas as they come to me, even if they're pretty lame. A little fleshing out can do wonders.
Method 2: Wrack my brain and stare off into space until I've got something.
Method 3: Ask others for help, bouncing horrid, half-thought ideas back in forth until something comes to me and I very rudely cut them off and go to work on it.

I, uh, hope that was enlightening.

THIS IS A REAL ANIMAL! (A Strange Dream)

So there's this massive, cyberpunk-esque metropolis, right? With all the neon, floating cars, and dense clouds of smoke and all that. But just outside it, past all the clouds, is this sunny, enchanted looking forest. And there are, in fact, unicorns and pixies and the like frolicking around, as well as caves where goblins and dragons lurk. But, this isn't Shadowrun! All those fantastic creatures are just genetically engineered, and very docile. The forest itself is a tourist spot, where you pay to do some glorified LARPing. You can play a druid, or a knight, or what have you.
My dream starts in a tavern in this enchanted wood type area, though I am not myself. I'm someone else, an older blond dude with short cropped hair and dark stubble playing a knight, who is getting pretty drunk and breaking a lot of the park rules. There's a big fight, and then I get thrown out. There's some odd section about Spider-Man here (this whole part of the dream was quite vague), but then I'm in the city, and I'm actually me. I'm in a small apartment, reminiscent of a capsule/honeycomb hotel with my brother and a friend of his. We're watching a small television set, set into the wall up high, like in a waiting room. A show that we are anticipating (somehow similar to Ghost in the Shell), is going to come on shortly. We're pretty excited, but evidently we all do something quite wrong, or had something we did found out, and are thus punished. A couple of police androids show up and give us the standard punishment, which is to say they stick these weird things in our noses. It had a hard plastic base, and two rubber extensions with what looked like fiber optics with rapidly flashing lights inside attached to a thin wire, which entered the nose. Kind of like this:

Kind of looks a lot like a sex-toy, come to think of it.

The devices "locked in", and became impossible to remove without injury, but would "unlock" at a specific time, later in the day. Just in time for the show, fortunately. It took a little getting used to, but with a little practice, I got to be able to breathe as normal. I stepped out of the hotel/apartment and out onto the streets at around dusk, and decided to go to a local bar that I was evidently familiar with. I forgot about the device in my nose's other purpose, and it began to rapidly flash and beep, as I was in a restricted zone for my privilege level, and I was escorted out. It was also implied that the device was a tracker, as well.
After this, a nonsensical scene transition occurs, and I don't seem to have the device in my nose anymore, and most of the "plot" from before is dropped, but I'm still me, and still in the city. Except now I have a car, a red with white finish, retro '50s looking open roofed sports car that hovers a foot or so off the ground. I'm driving, with my girlfriend in the passenger seat, and we've got the radio up, and are laughing and having a good time, but it's getting pretty late. We decide to pull into a motel, which is sort of a squat sized building that we drive up to and a canopy off the building closes over the open roof of the car, giving us enough room to stand up and still have a ceiling. A small room exists from the car to the building of the wall, which has a bathroom and closet. My girlfriend and I fold the seats down, and are about to go to sleep, when I suddenly need to go to the bathroom, so I slip out and head that way.
After I'm done with my business, I look over to notice there's a door set into the wall, and I wonder where it leads. I step through and see a kitchen that seems to be connected only to my room, but seems much, much too large for just my uses, more like a large restaurant's kitchen. As I walk farther in, I notice another doorway and step into that one. I ascend a curving flight of stairs, and on my way, pass an old friend of mine who is descending, but we don't say anything to each other. I get to the top, on a balcony inside what looks like the foyer of a typical mansion, with more stairs leading up. Here I notice large thick metal beams set against the wall, leading up to something I can't see from my angle. I ascend again, two more floors, and it turns out they're the legs for a three story tall Casio electric keyboard. This seems nonsensical, but my attention is diverted as I notice another door, which I step through.
I'm now in a large poolside "outdoor" resort (it quickly becomes apparent to me that it's actually indoors, and through a clever combination of inflatable scenery, backdrops and holograms, only seems to be outdoors). Though, oddly, much of my family seems to be here, even members I haven't seen in years. I look past the pool to a winding "country road", where many of my family members are arriving in classic cars with wheels, all claiming that they drove hours to get here from this place or that, despite all arriving at once from the same road. They also have some pretty creepy, artificial smiles as they say this. My parents finally show up, in a baby blue classic Volkswagen Beetle (which they have never owned, I might add) though there appears to be an older man and woman in the backseat that I don't recognize. My parents get out and quickly explain that they represent voices in my father's head? The man, a balding Semitic looking fellow, is supposedly the more annoying voice of the two, and my father and I berate and threaten him until he leaves in fear out a back door which before looked only like blue sky. After a while of hanging around, my dad and I decide that this is all horrible, and decide to leave out that same door.
We step out into an alleyway, and it looks to be a cloudy mid-day, somehow. We begin to walk and talk, and as we do, I glance and see where the old voice man is hiding, though my father doesn't seem to notice. He has a look of fear on his face, and I shoot him an evil "if you step out of that spot we are going to tear you apart" sort of grin his way, and continue walking. Suddenly my phone rings, and it's another friend of mine, and we start some idle chit-chat. However, I stop paying attention to focus on what my dad's saying, about how all the food in this city is gross, chemically processed junk, which I agree with. We make some vague plans to hunt one of the creatures in the forest for food, probably a unicorn. I then realize how I was ignoring my friend, and put the phone back to my ear, when I notice he's singing. Singing really well, actually, though about my brother's friend's dog, and how much he loves him. "I love you, Buddy I love you", he sings, and I feel slightly uncomfortable, even though by "Buddy", I know he means the dog. I compliment him on his singing and attempt to pretend I was paying attention, when my father and I finally get out of the alley and on the street itself. Lots of tall skyscrapers painted a variety of shades of red and violet. An animated billboard catches my eye. It shows a video of what looks to be a man-like koala, holding a very large (about the size of my hand) brownish grasshopper type bug. The koala consumes the things in three quick, brutal, and horrifying bites with his frighteningly human teeth, and text flashes on the screen, declaring "THIS IS A REAL ANIMAL!". It then flashes to drawings of anthropomorphic animals, each one getting more human as it goes along, and each one having even ruder and cruder insults pasted over it, in comparison to the koala thing.
Then I wake up, and my mind is blown, because I've never remembered this much of a dream, and certainly not in such stunning detail.

What's in Them?

Names I've come up with that wound up already being used elsewhere:
Kermit McDermott - Used in the song "Do That There (Young Einstein Hoo-Hoo Mix)", by Lyrics Born on the album "Same Shit, Different Day" (which is about as good as it sounds).
Danny Callahan - The title of a Conor Oberst song, on his solo album, "Conor Oberst" and I will try to resist making a joke about him stealing Danny from me.

The first one I can live without, but... I liked Danny. Ah well.