The new home of Here It Is…

Volumes 1-15: Find a feather, go to the next world.  Find a feather, go to the next world, find a feather go to the next world…

Volume 16: Find a feath- WHAT THE F—–?

This is pretty much directly related to my last post.

(Sadly, I’m right there with you, train guy.)

1) Weird Al: Awesome.

2) In the style of the White Stripes:  Doubly awesome.

3) Song is about Charles Nelson Reilly. Triply awesome.

…hours pass…

Joe: “Spreadsheet’s done. Want to take a look before I send it?”
“No, just send it.”
Joe: …ok… *sends*

…days later…

“Joe, spreadsheet’s wrong. Come back and re-do it.”

A great battle is beginning.

A city on the water is going about its business; the water comes back, then a giant wave crashes (opposite from where a wave usually comes from, facing away from the land) and destroys lots of stuff. (Editor’s note: Yeah, I tried to brush up the descriptions a little in the proceeding paragraphs before posting this, but I missed this part. I’m leaving it in, since the word “stuff” isn’t used too much anymore, and gosh-darn it, it should. — Joe). A large titan-like being is seen approaching from the horizon. Classical music is playing.

At another city, a similar occurrence: a large titan-like being in the horizon takes a giant step and quakes the land in front of him, causing giant cracks in the earth from beneath his gigantic feet.

A man, wearing a white pilot-like suit is propelling across the water (using propulsion devices commonly installed in the suits worn by all the city’s citizens) and is surprise-attacked by another being dressed in the same suit. The attacker quickly bites the man’s entire torso as it jumps from beneath the water, taking it and its victim under. Another man, located on a floating dock, notices this and immediately knows what’s going on. He begins to run away, but an attacker looking very-much similar to the first jumps from the water and knocks him in. Someone yells “GET OUT OF THE WATER”, and he’s able to before the attackers could secure him. He explodes out of the water (no doubt using some kind of emergency deployment in his suit), lands on the dock and makes a land-dash towards his home close by. 

At home, he’s carrying a laptop computer as he’s acrobatically traveling through his house; he never touches the floor, jumping like a circus act from one vertical pole to another while accessing his laptop. He knows he has to change his laptop password; “BUBBLES” has to be changed to something more secure, something they’ll never figure out. “SHOWTIME”? No, that’s easy. Eying his cat as he leaps by, he keys in “SNOBALL”, but clears that, unsatisfied with his decision. He then spots large birds on his bedroom balcony. He pauses on a poll, wrapping his arm around it, holding the laptop open with his left hand while typing with his right and smiles as he’s now found his answer: “BIGTITS”. “They’ll never get it.”

He closes the laptop and finally lands in the hallway. He only takes a few steps when he spots his enemy, dressed in the same clothing he is. The enemy stands on the other side of the room, carrying a framed enlarged musical score.  

“That’s my Beethoven’s 9^th”, the man says. The enemy smiles as he turns and begins his escape with the historic symphony. The man gives chase knowing these guys can be caught out of water, but once they reach water, his prized possession will never be seen again.

When I got back, I realized going back out was not a good idea, with the roads continuing to be bad and the likely drunk state of people driving late at night.  So, I’m at my apartment by myself for New Year’s… but am I really by myself?

At 11:20pm or so, I decided that, even though no one’s with me, I’m going to enjoy myself.  I usually don’t drink by myself, as I’ve been told drinking by one’s self is one of the signs of an alcoholic, but New Year’s is a special occasion, so I break open my bottle of Jack Daniel’s, pour a glass of Coke, add ice and mix.  Jack and Coke is my drink of choice, which is what I told one of my friends from work when I had my first Game Night here.  He brought over the bottle of Jack as well as a bottle of Captain Morgan, both of which I still have in the pantry as a testament to my utter lack of having people over for social visits.

But, I do realize that having the bottle there at all is an accomplishment in that I did indeed have people over, and even though I’m not with them at the moment, I still know a great deal of awesome people that I don’t speak to or see as often as I should, which is an awful behavior I always need to be aware of and correct.  And, of course, I’m also reminded of the current network of friends that I have, and I’m grateful to them for being able to know them and be their friend as well.

So yeah.  I’ve decided I’m not actually by myself tonight.  It doesn’t matter if I’m not physically with people.  I can reflect on each of my friends and how they’ve impacted me and made this year a good one, and hopefully they can do the same with me.

Happy New Year!

We’re in the middle of a national economic crisis; there’s no confidence in Wall Street, people are losing jobs left and right, the US is still in Iraq where it never should’ve been in the first place, an election next month threatens to tear the nation apart on racial, gender-like and ideological fronts, climate change continues to threaten the world via super-powered tropical storms and other natural disasters, and there appears to be no hope in sight for any of this to be resolved.

Well, I’m telling you that there is hope.

Because today, I set my apartment’s brand new thermostat to go up to 67 degrees at 6:00pm M-F.  And, a little under 30 minutes ago, the heat went up to 67 degrees, as I instructed it to do.  And tonight, at 11:00pm, the heat will drop to 62 degrees, because I told it to.

Friends, these are exciting times.

The dream starts at home at night. Dad is doing insulation duct work and his girlfriend (or someone wearing her boots) is shoving insulation up the duct (from the other side of the house, a long way from where he is) so Dad can work on it. We can’t put on the air conditioner because the ducts he’s working on are right outside the air conditioner. While in the rather large house (where I’ve never lived in-real-life but am apparently familiar with in the dream), I see the area of the house he lives in (with his parents and girlfriend) and he’s decorated for Christmas, which is odd since it’s summer (as evidenced by my want to put on the air conditioner.) The fire place has stockings, there’s a Christmas tree, there’s a few 3-foot-tall plastic fake-candles that plug in and light up and have “NOEL” written down the candle, there’s a red area rug with red and white frills along the edges, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS.

I go outside and my cousin is walking her dog.

My sister, mom and mom’s mother are in the room with the air conditioner we can’t put on. The insulation duct is just outside the window, and we periodically see chunks of insulation fly out of a hole my dad’s punched through. We interpret this as my dad having a hard time doing whatever it is he needs to do, and hence, finding it funny.

Then it starts raining.

The scene changes completely. I’m at some college like Binghamton, there’s a fire drill, and some dorms go on a prison-style lockdown (having fence and barbed wire around the building along with armed gurards at the entry points), Then, everyone has to leave the campus so there’s a rush to get to our cars and it’s like a sporting event after it’s over; getting out is almost like a competition in and of itself. The parking lot is not like any of Binghamton’s lots, but instead it’s one very large parking lot for the whole campus.

In the ensuing chaos of everyone trying to get to their cars and leave as quickly as possible, I’m trying to pickup anyone as a passenger and charge them a taxi fare, and I’m hoping to pick up Anthony of the Opie and Anthony show (why he’s there, I don’t know.  But he’s there.) I talk to him (!) and say that he wants to pick up some friends on the West Side Highway (huh?), but I say there’s an accident and we’d have to go straight to his destination. He leaves.

Getting out of the parking lot becomes weird as people in front of me are stopping, reversing, and going forward quickly. As I attempt to go around them, they get in my way. I look behind me, and I see no line of cars whatsoever. When I finally see an opening, the entire line of cars coordinates with itself and attempts to follow me as news cameramen are following me on foot. (Apparently, escaping from a parking lot is newsworthy?)

Some of the cars are now chasing me, and my car can apparently do jumps and hide (as if I’m now in a video game), and I can watch other cars attempt to follow me and crash. For example, one set of cars attempts to follow me into a supermarket (which looks a lot like the King Kullen I used to work at [which closed down recently]). My car and I jump on top of one of the aisles, and I jump down at the end of the aisle. They drive off the end of the aisle into the meat section. I score some kind of points as announced over some loud speakers (perhaps the store’s PA system?).

Yeah. Odd dream.