Remember that post from the other day with the unknown food item? Well, it's time to reveal its true identity:

DOLLAR STORE STUFFING!!! Well, dollar store stuffing mix, mixed with frozen vegetables (last time okra and mashed up Brussels sprouts; here with stir fry vegetables), flax seeds (fiber supplements = win), and occasionally other stuff like fake crabmeat, cheese, and/or mayonnaise. Once all this stuff is in the bowl together, I usually add a generous portion of oil, some water, mix the stuff up well, and then nuke it in the microwave for upwards of fifteen minutes or so -- basically until most of the mixture is cooked out of it and I'm left with a semi-spongy but mostly crunchy sort of casserole. It's pretty good! And as long as they keep selling stuffing mix at the dollar store, it'll probably be a staple of my diet for quite some time... or at least until I finish the two bags of stuffing mix currently in the cupboard.

I've also become quite fond of fake crabmeat and cream cheese sandwiches lately. I got the idea from Boston sushi rolls, which I quite like, but somehow these sandwiches manage to be even more palatable. I'll have to start using light or fat-free cream cheese to make them, though, so that I can even start claiming that they're healthy and low in calories. 😉

Other random photos: a shot of the cups from which I usually drink and one of the figures currently decorating my desk. I've had the Foot Tech Ninja and Donatello since December, and Skeletor has been here for a few years (and if you can see Cubone behind him, he's been here even longer), but I took this photo primarily to showcase Emma Frost -- a new addition courtesy of the delightful Mickey! She'll make it down to the basement and get a proper photo shoot in a few days -- I tend to keep new figures in my room for a bit before relocating them to the subterranean studio -- but for now I'm very much enjoying having her upstairs and placing her in various poses and whatnot. Not pictured is the Transformer Landmine on my bed. I keep new Transformers in my room to fiddle with as well -- they tend to stay until I get another Transformer to replace them. Landmine has been up here for a couple of weeks, though I imagine the turnaround period will be much shorter whenever those new Animated toys hit. 🙂

And I had a very strange set of dreams during today's nap. One of them involved alligators entering via some hidden entrance and attacking me in the living room, which prompted me to contact the Justice League of America for help. Just before I woke up, Batman was on his way and Firestorm was creating an anti-alligator enclosure to keep everyone safe until he arrived. Yep.

So yeah, I didn't get that teaching job in Japan. It's not entirely unexpected given how horribly the interview went, but I'm still pretty disappointed about it. Ah well -- I'll mope about it for the next few days and then come up with some new ideas. It's lame consolation, but at least now I'll be around when DCUC Wave 3 is released. Grundy will crush.

And hey, "Doctor Who" Series 4 starts tomorrow, so I can't be too sad. 😐

That said, I was upset enough to hop back into bed after getting the rejection e-mail and drift off into unconsciousness for a few more hours... whereupon I dreamed I was at a strange gathering with a bunch of random people. In the end it degenerated into a brawl of sorts -- I ultimately woke up during Bill Richardson's attempt to talk me out of beating the hell out of Chris Crocker for intentionally spilling punch on my shirt. Blame the CNN political ticker and this week's "South Park" episode for that last part.

I'm not sure whether I'm drooling all over my pillow and then flipping over or what, but I had another dream last night in which I got shot in the head and spent the remainder of the dream bleeding profusely. When it began, I was traveling through a desert with a stranger in search of shelter. Eventually we came upon a gated military installation of sorts, but they refused to let us in... so my loyal companion deduced that they'd have to let us in if one of us were wounded and promptly fired a shot into the back of my skull. I blacked out.

I awoke within the installation, bleeding profusely as an emaciated man straddled me and with his hands pressed against my forehead (the exit wound, apparently) and the base of my skull to stem the flow of blood. Then, suddenly, I found myself sitting at home watching TV -- but still bleeding extensively from the head. The events of the dream were fairly normal from that point onward. I checked my e-mail and did some browsing on the computer, went to Toys 'R' Us in search of some DC Universe Classics figures, and so forth. Except all the while I continued to bleed from the head in two directions and wonder when I would finally die from the blood loss. Yep.

And then, when I finally woke up and returned to sleep, I had some odd dream involving Catherine Keener and Tom Hanks telephoning each other and showering in the woods and hitchhiking in the rain.

My subconscious is very, very strange.

So I never did finish up that new year's post I'd started way back when. Maybe I'll get around to that someday. Anyway, I'm ready to post about new stuff, but before I do here's the part of that old entry that I did complete. Woo.

For those not in the know, the topic is one of the many Bizarro ways of saying HAPPY NEW YEAR! There are others, of course -- and although technically Bizarro speak simply involves speaking in opposites, it can be pretty imprecise. For example, in Superman/Batman #24, Bizarro says, "Superman no am in trouble!" -- meaning that Superman is in trouble. Yet he then says, "He no am with Darkseid having fun!" At the time, Superman is indeed with Darkseid. However, since he certainly is not having fun, the entire statement isn't a negation of the truth -- and given that Superman isn't having fun with Darkseid, it is arguably true as stated. Similarly, Bizarro will refer to Superman as his "worst idol" -- by which he means his greatest idol -- but refer to Batzarro as his "worst enemy" -- by which he means his best friend.

Needless to say, deciphering Bizarro speak can be a confusing affair.

Anyway, I hope your new year is going well thus far! Mine is going less well than I'd hoped -- that is, in the dream department. (Not that things are going great otherwise, mind you, but they're not going terribly either. As usual, we're about par for the course.) See, whereas my last dream of 2007 was a new experience for me and my first dream of 2008 proved similarly encouraging, my second dream pretty much dashed my hopes of 2008 ushering in a new era of awesome dreams. Let me explain.

On December 31, 2007, I took a several-hour midday nap and awoke on schedule to the frenzied beeping of my Mickey Mouse alarm clock. However, when I rose from my bed and attempted to turn off the clock, I found myself unable to silence it despite pressing and depressing the singular button several times. I sadly assumed that the clock had finally broken on me -- I've had it as long as I can remember; I distinctly recall its beeping sound waking me at 4:30 AM on Saturday mornings so I could watch "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" -- and ventured to remove the batteries from it one final time.

I had the batteries in my hand, but it continued to beep.

Impossible? Yes, impossible. Impossible. Unless...

"This is a fucking dream!" I said aloud. When I turned to see another identical alarm clock perched atop a floating shelf that isn't actually in my real room (which, despite my apparent understanding of the nature of my reality, didn't register with me at the time), I repeated my assertion. "This is a fucking dream!!! And when attempting to turn that clock off and removing its batteries failed to silence the beeping, I closed my eyes and willed myself to wake up for real.

Upon doing so and silencing good ol' Mickey (still working just as well as ever!) I considered that that was the first dream I have ever had in which I realized with certainty that I was dreaming. I've had other dreams that I've suspected of being dreams, but then I am prone to getting that sneaking suspicion in waking life as well -- particularly when I find myself in well-stocked toystores or the VCD/DVD shops of NYC's Chinatown.

And perhaps I'll write more about that at a later date (but probably not). Long story short, though -- the next dream had me wandering around different locales and somehow controlling the dream so that I was ultimately cuddling with this cute little blonde number in a grey sweater (who, though I wasn't familiar with the actress at the time, bore a strong resemblance to Allison Mack). Encouraging, right? Then I went on to dream about being shot in the back of the head and bleeding profusely for what seemed like an eternity before I finally opened my eyes and found myself in bed. Yippee.

Last week I had another dream that I was traveling with the Doctor! This one wasn't nearly as interesting as the last one, though, which featured the First Doctor and the lovely (young) Sarah Jane Smith. This time, I was saddled with Mickey Smith, Rose Tyler, and the Tenth Doctor, the latter two of whom pretty much stayed in the TARDIS cracking jokes and drinking tea while Mickey and I were stuck dodging Daleks and mind-controlled humans and disarming bombs throughout the city of New Haven. My own solo exploits took me to one of the dorms on Yale's Old Campus, where I encountered a number of hostile coeds that needed to be subdued by my fist and one unaffected student who had somehow been sleeping with Rose for the past several months (that whore).

Eventually we disarmed all of the bombs (and though I say we, I did most of the work even here, taking out like 12 of the 15 devices) and rendezvoused in an enclosed hangar area not unlike the boarding area of Space Mountain, only without the huge crowds of people and the blinking neon lights. At this point, the Doctor and Rose came waltzing in, arm in arm, and the Doctor proceeded to wax gleefully about how he saved the day and everything was right with the world and crap.

"What?!" I shouted. "You left me and Mickey to deal with a city full of Daleks and zombies and fucking explosives -- and I don't even know how to disarm a bomb!" The Doctor, in Tennant's cheerful and insultingly dismissive way, responded, "Wellllllll that didn't stop you, now did it? 🙂 " I wanted to punch him hard in the face, but instead I just stormed off.

Mickey had earlier done the same because he'd found out about Rose's infidelity and was pretty hurt -- I shortly found him sobbing in the backseat of the Space Mountain-esque shuttles. I hopped in the front, we shot off along the track, and then I woke up.

Speaking of the Doctor, the episode that aired this past weekend was the absolute worst "Doctor Who" episode ever. Like several of the episodes this season, it was a completely unnecessary retread of offerings from last season -- in this case, "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit" -- except here the similarities were so blatant and over the top that this episode was less a retread and more an offensive ripoff and complete and utter waste of time. And what wasn't borrowed stolen wholesale from that previous episode (or from the show 24, which some fools at the Doctor Who Magazine apparently had the audacity to claim had little to do with even the title of this episode) was just ludicrous rubbish. Chris Chibnall should never be allowed to write for television again, especially considering that he was also responsible for the very worst of the "Torchwood" eps (which were also horrible ripoffs of eps from other TV shows, most notably "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel"). The guy is terrible.

FYI, the quotation is from last year's "remake" of The Wicker Man. Pretty terrible film, hence the use of a quote from it in connection with "42"! You can see some of the best and most ridiculous scenes from it in this video on YouTube. Try not to laugh when Nicholas Cage ninja kicks Leelee Sobieski in the face and knocks the shit out of another woman while wearing a bear costume. Those furries are fucking hardcore.

All for now -- I was going to add something about religion and sewing (I've been mending my trench coat and backpack and suitcase with needle and thread and had some interesting thoughts along those lines), but I guess that'll have to wait. Until I write again, take excellent care of yourselves! Ja.

P.S. Wesoteric is now running WordPress 2.2! Not that you can tell. 😉