Last had I dreamed the strangest dream...

Lately, I've been remembering my dreams a lot more. When I was a teenager, I would remember them quite frequently and in startling (to the ones who heard about them) detail but over the past few years, I'd remember two or three a month, if that. I'd like to think that my mind is unlocking after a long period of vague, then crushing, unhappiness, but we'll see... At any rate, in the last few weeks, I've had several interesting and relevant dreams that have given me pause. One of the ones I had this morning, though, is too silly not to share.

I was on vacation with Laura (from season 3 of Project Runway) and someone else. We were at some sort of country house, which I think may in fact have belonged to Laura, and there was a large pool in the back yard. We were sitting outside, relaxing in the sun, when Laura suggested we race her whales. Because she had whales in her swimming pool, of course! But we wouldn't just be racing the whales, they'd be rigged up to sailboats and would pull us along. The other person and I were a bit puzzled about the logistics of the whole thing, because the pool was big, but not that big, but we followed Laura to the pool to meet the whales. They didn't really look like whales at all, they looked more like giant fish swimming on their backs, about 8m long, with a ridge of spiky fins along their backs. One was reddish-orange, kind of like a goldfish, one was a gorgeous shade of sapphire blue and the third was a mottled brown. Laura had seemingly forgotten about the boats, so she explained that each whale would wear a harness attached to a rope, kind of like to water ski except that instead of a little handle, the rope would end with a giant soup ladle and we'd have to grab that and be pulled underwater. Each ladle was almost as big as I was. I still couldn't figure out how we'd do it, because the length of the whole thing, whale and rope and ladle and person hanging on, was as least two thirds of the length of the pool, so the whales would have to turn around very quickly.

Cultural Consumption

Now I can't remember where I got this link (maybe, possibly from someone's livejournal?) but if you've ever played D&D, or any similar RPG, or if you like The Lord of the Rings, or if you're into any kind of geeky stuff at all, you all must go read it now:

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?cat=14

Hell, everyone should go read this now.

Lately read and seen:

Sailor Moon, vol. 9 (Naoko Takeuchi, English translation): This corresponds to the third TV season and involves the Witches 5, Mistress 9 and the awakening of Sailor Saturn. It's Sailor Moon, what else can I say? The Outer Senshi are around, and they're always cool, so that's a plus. Sailor Moon becomes Super Sailor Moon, so she gets wings and even sparklier jewelry, the power of friendship helps everyone through, etc. etc. What really bugged me was the lettering. Not only was the font annoying, but the words looked really clumsy in the thought/speaking balloons. I know that when translating from Japanese, it's tough to get around the fact that the ballons are vertical rather than horizontal, but pretty much every other translated manga I've read, whether in French or in English, managed to do just fine, so why did the people at Tokyopop screw up?

C.R.A.Z.Y.: A coming-of-age and coming-out story about Zachary, born in 1960 in Quebec, the fourth of five brothers (the Z. in the title, the other letters are his brothers' names). The music of the era plays a big part in the story of the family so for any music fans will appreciate it. Even if you don't care much about music, it's a good film and worth seeing. Although, and I don't care if I sound picky, the sound mixing could really have been done better. I was watching it last evening, in my little thin-walled apartment and had to turn the volume waaaay up to understand each of the (many) whispered conversations throughout the film -- only to have another song blasted out loud two minutes later, sending me scrambling for the volume button again. There must be a happy medium, folks.

Slings & Arrows (both series, 6 episodes each): My family kindly gave me these DVDs for Christmas. Thank you, family! The first series, where they put on a production of Hamlet (hence the title) was looped a million times on Showcase a couple of years ago, so I'd seen all the episodes mulitple times except the fourth one, for some reason, which I'd never seen in its entirety. In the second series, made a couple of years after the first, the original cast is back (though Rachel McAdams and Luke Kirby are only there for the first episode) and trying to get through the Scottish play. It's not quite as funny as the first season, but it's still much funnier than most of what passes for comedy on tv nowadays, and made me laugh out loud several times -- the Romeo & Juliet rehearsal that you see in episode 6 just about killed me, it was PERFECT, especially after the set-up, over several episodes, of people complaining about it. There's even a third season now, about King Lear, which I want to see badly. And it always tickles me to see something made-in-Canada, especially something that pokes fun at funding for the arts and Ministers of Culture. I'd recommend these series to anyone, because they're good, and that goes double for anyone who has any interest in Shakespeare or theatre in general.