I was just napping and dreamed that I was staring at Duncan MacPhish (I still have him in a jar of alcohol, though he was in a liquid-filled bag in the dream). Somehow I'd forgotten that he is dead, so at first I was saddened to see him not moving. But then I remembered... and then he suddenly started swimming around! It was pretty weird -- he swam in circles and ghost images of him leapt off of the main body and faded away as they got farther from him -- but I was still quite glad to see him "alive" again.

I like to think he returned for my birthday.

A few nights ago, I dreamed that my laptop had come down with a strange and persistent virus. My entire system was pretty much overrun with advertisements for a shipping company -- to the point that my Windows background, all of my desktop icons, and any image on my machine became ads -- ultimately culminating in one big ad that covered the entire screen and made it impossible for me to see any of the windows behind it. Upon [i]finally[/i] managing to shut the machine down, I attempted to reboot... only to find my startup screens also replaced by ads. It was bloody frustrating, and the ads kept thwarting me at every turn. I woke up just as I successfully booted into safe mode.

And then, tonight, I dreamed that my laptop gained sentience. Nothing really happened after that point, mind you -- the computer and I just talked, and I found the whole thing both worrisome and even a little bit cool. But while the machine didn't do anything sinister, it did refer to itself as Venjix. This was one of those worrisome/cool things. Worrisome because Venjix is the Skynet of Power Rangers RPM; cool because my computer named itself after a villainous computer system from Power Rangers. Even if I weren't evil, I'd probably do something similar if I were a sentient computer.

I think I'd pick a Decepticon name, though. 😉

Last night, I dreamed that I was sitting at the kitchen table when I noticed these two really huge spiders approaching me. Not normal daddy long legs huge or even tarantula huge -- we're talking swollen grapefruits with eight cigar-thick hairy legs huge. And I wasn't so much freaked out as I was annoyed by their presence, because apparently these enormous spiders had accosted me before.

"Fuck," I said, "it's these things again."

I tried stomping on them, but for some reason I was unable to do so despite them being as big as my feet. When they began to climb the chair, I stood, shook them back onto the floor, and swung a black tarpaulin over them. I then went to the tool drawer, retrieved a hammer, and waited at the edge of the tarp for them to emerge so that I could smash their furry heads in.

After minutes of waiting, I removed the tarpaulin to find that they had vanished. The moment I made this discovery, however, I heard a squeak from behind -- and I whirled to see a large (think Ben-sized), fat white mouse zipping around the house. So quite naturally I began diving after the thing with the hammer, smashing dent after dent into the floor as I repeatedly tried and failed to kill the damned thing. (more...)

So, with this current bout of illness, my hours are really screwy again -- I feel pretty crappy during the day but more/less okay at night, so I've been sleeping during the daylight hours and waking up after the sun sets. It's like I draw energy from the darkness or something -- the sun is up now and I feel like I'm ready to collapse from exhaustion. I think I'm yawning, but then I can't necessarily tell the difference since my nose is clogging considerably, forcing me to breathe through my mouth... and not in the good way inspired by boot-wearing companions.

Anyway, since I'd like to clear away some Firefox windows before I go to bed, here's a Facebook meme that I started to do a few days ago and then didn't finish. I'm posting it here, rather than Facebook, since I rarely post on Facebook beyond the status messages. That interface is annoying enough without silly memes from insignificant Wes popping up on your pages. (more...)

First, to answer Becky's comment on the last post, my dream never did give me a definite confirmation on who Obama's actual VP pick was -- there were just lots of names out there due to the psychic paper. My own note indicated Kathleen Sebelius, since I was kind of hoping he'd pick her (I really like her record, and picking her would have served as a preemptive measure against McCain picking a female running mate to lure disaffected Hillary supporters)... but she was so damned dull at the convention that I'm glad Obama didn't go with her. In waking life, I actually expected him to bite the bullet and pick Clinton -- even with the change argument, he could easily have justified the pick by saying that this election is also about the people. And you can't deny that whole heck of a lot of them wanted Hillary!

Regarding McCain's actual pick -- after Obama didn't pick Hillary, and given McCain's ads about his choice, and especially given how hard the Dems hit McCain on his less-than-female-friendly record this week, I kinda figured he'd pick a woman for his running mate. I doubted it would be Sarah Palin, what with her being under investigation for corruption and all, but eh. Anyway, I pretty much agree with the general consensus -- choosing Palin is a gamble with fairly unpredictable results. It clearly seems like McCain is pandering to female voters by selecting a woman as his VP (especially since there are a number of more qualified Republican women), but given my low opinion of the public I'm not sure whether disgruntled Clinton voters will be energized or offended.

I also think this shifts quite a bit more responsibility to Biden and Clinton. If the latter comes right out and picks the woman apart when campaigning for Obama, then it's less likely that her supporters will fall for the trick. If Biden destroys Palin in the debate (without coming across as a woman-hating bully), McCain will really be in trouble. If she even remotely comes close to holding her own, though, that could lend her quite a bit of credibility.

If I had a higher opinion of the voting public, I'd think McCain just threw the election -- but since I don't, this pick leaves me a little worried.