Lullablog

Christians for Playstation

We live in a cul-de-sac within a complex of condos. Every few units share a trash bin and ours keeps getting overloaded because other people stuff their trash in our bins. Our condo building knows that another building down the street belongs to an old woman who never fills her trash so my neighbor Stu and I decide to go sneak some trash into her bin. Stu knows a way into her garage. We succeed in dumping our trash but as we're leaving a large group appears and start singing hymns. They appear to be some sort of Christian congregation. It freaks us out a bit that it's happening in the middle of a cul-de-sac but it sounds nice.

After a few songs, a group of Hindus show up and protest that this is their gathering spot every single week. They accuse the Christians of knowing that and intentionally disrupting their event.  We later learn that the Christian gathering was actually nothing more than a guerrilla marketing promotion for a new Sony Playstation game, which makes the Hindus even more upset. The promo strikes me as crass but can't get over how great the choir sounded.

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Potential Inspiration: I really do have a neighbor named Stu and we really do have problems with other people overloading our trash. We have not, however, used other bins and/or run into clashing religious groups.

Product Placement: Sony Playstation

Rating: 9. That fact that religion shows up wherever guilt is found (using other people's trash bins) along with the commentary on squabbles between religions, this one has enough symbolic commentary for a  full semester.

AMDB

Jen and I work for the same company and are chatting/flirting in front of the corner office of a new VP. He comes back to his office and looks just like the actor from "Rome" and "Journeyman". He calls us into his office where I immediately notice a framed photo of his wife. She is fairly ugly. He asks us if we know what the AMDB is. As he asks, he holds up a thick book with the letters AMDB on the front. I say no but feel like I should since I'm fairly senior as well. The AMDB, he tells us, is the Automatic Database and allows you to store almost anything.

He goes on about it for a while then changes subjects and tell us he has an idea for a game. The idea of the game is a virtual recreation of the office where you need to work hard and not be distracted. Attractive people of the opposite sex try to flirt with you and a Nerf football lies around but if you flirt or play with the ball you lose points. He asks me my opinion of the game. I want to tell him it's terrible and most of the world isn't as straight arrow as he. But instead I tell him that virtual world-type games are big right now. Jen sort of reports to him so I leave, fearing he will judge me harshly and take it out on her. However I later learn that he told her how helpful I've been.

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Product Placement: Nerf

Rating: 5.  This one has the potential to burst out into an "Office Space"-type parody but ends before it really gets started.

Mechanic Competition

My car gets a flat tire so I head to the repair shop. There is someone else there from work and we decide to make  the act of getting our tires fixed competitive: see who gets the "highest rating" by the time the tires are fixed. We are each assigned a mechanic. It turns out in my case that a rock got inside the wheel well and ripped a big hole in the tire. My mechanic says it's possible to fix by "stretching and patching" it.

He pulls off the tire to work on it, then tell me that the way the car stereo is hooked up may have caused the blowout and he wants me to go get the stereo out of the car. I ask him how to do that. "However you can get it out," he replies. As I'm walking out toward the car, the guy I work with accidentally knocks down an entire piled up store display. "That's minus points for him," I say, sure that I must be winning now.

I go outside to find another mechanic looking at the back of my car and when I go to get the car stereo I see that it's already out. I ask him if he took my stereo out and he seemingly can't hear me the first three times I ask. He then says yes and that he figured I'd need it out. I'm not totally convinced that he wasn't trying to steal it. He says he noticed all my CDs and that they play a lot of Captain Beefheart in the shop.

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Rating: 5.  Between this dream and the one before it, the idea of work being challenging or competitive is definitely on the brain. Fear of thieving mechanics doesn't seem like such a stretch either.

Photo credit: Duff Suds

Office Obstacle Course

A group of people are at an obstacle course set up on an isolated road running alongside a forest. The course consists of office furniture, much of which is being suspended in the air. The goal is to climb across the furniture without touching the ground and do it as fast as you can. It is tough on my back as I do the course since so much of the furniture has soft cushions.

After trying the course a few times, we all pile into a minivan and head to a Mexican open-air market. As we get out of the car there are a bunch of men there offering to help us with anything we want. We politely say no but they stay huddled around our car and I get a bit nervous since I'm getting my wallet and phone out of the glove compartment. I yell at them to move away.

We head into the market. Courtney Acuff, one person in the group, tells the van driver that he should really get insurance considering how he drives.

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Rating: 4.  Two potentially interesting scenes here: an obstacle course made out of office furniture and a vibrant open-air market. Unfortunately, not enough of interest happens in either location.

Photo credit: samharber

Truck Stop Massage

My friend Mark Winick drives a truck for a living and offers to take along Jen and I for one of his trips. Along the way, we stop at a truck stop where everyone seems to know Mark. After hanging out for a while, Mark tells us he's going to get a massage, something he does every time he comes here. We wish him luck but then, instead of leaving, he strips down to a pair of tighty-whitey underwear right there in the central diner area. A woman comes out and sets up a massage table in the diner and starts giving Mark a massage in front of everyone. Jen and I are uncomfortable to say the least.

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Rating: 7.  While I'm guessing neither Mark nor I are entirely comfortable that I had this dream, it's a good little piece of comedy and getting to ride a big rig with Winick behind the wheel makes the whole thing worth it.

Photo credit: robsv

New in Japan

I have moved to an apartment in Japan and feel completely out of place. On one of my first nights there, I'm hanging around the lobby of my building, still trying to get a feel for the place, when a man comes in and speaks to the security person in English. I introduce myself and find out he's from America and has been here a while. I offer to buy him a drink so I can learn more about my new home and he accepts.

After talking for a bit, I realize that Starcom, part of the company I work for, is having their award show here and I am supposed to attend. I get there late and see Steve Governale outside. He is on the phone and looks serious. He tells me he has to finish his conversation but wants me to wait for him there before going inside so I agree. He is pacing while talking to me and then suddenly disappears. I ask a few passers-by if they've seen him but no one has. I've missed the rest of the awards show waiting for him but get a message on Twitter that everyone is at a dive bar called Roy's for the after party. The next message says that Jeff Marshall is hooking up with a new employee of his named Roxanne.

I find Roy's. It is a fully furnished house turned into a bar, as if we were all in high school and someone's parents were gone. It's amazing and I can't believe the perfect condition it is in. My group is in the attic where all the lights are out and the party is raging.

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Product Placement: Twitter

Rating: 7.  The look of this one is great - mostly of it dark and sumptuously lit. The bar where I have that first drink, the fluorescent lobby of my building, the shiny outside where the awards show takes place, and the elegant downstairs and party-shack upstairs at Roy's.

Photo Credit: aptrick

Welcome to California

I have moved to California and the first thing I see is a car chase between an African American driving on old 70s car and Scott Rao and Craig Reese driving a boring  modern-day sedan. The first guy suddenly screeches to a halt and opens his car door while Scott and Craig speed by and shear the door right off. He is angry but knows he was as much a part of the car chase as they were so feels he can't argue. I wonder how Scott and Craig have stayed in touch all these years.

I have a business meeting at a hip new hotel in Century City. I am waiting and waiting for a long time in the lobby, looking for celebrities the whole time. I get a call saying the meeting has been moved. They are apologetic and tell me to go to the concierge for cookies. They also have an extra tall jar filled with free Dubble Bubble. I choose one that is double sour apple flavor and one that is a sour apple/ sour cherry combination. They are packaged in twos. I'm a bit surprised at myself but I don't choose grape. Anisha arrives just as I'm leaving and, because the meeting has been moved, she can't attend now for some reason.

I finally arrive at my new apartment, also in Century City. Jen is watching a TV show where a woman is practicing some sort of futuristic bowling where you hurl a flying disc to knock over the pins. Instead of just watching, you can influence how the person throws by using a controller. We are waiting for my parents to arrive who want to see the new place.

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Rating:  6. The car chase starts things out with a bang and then the momentum just sort of slowly dies from there.

Bert's Married Years

My sister has a pet turtle that can wear Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses despite having no nose to hold them up. The turtle is very shy and I am trying to win its trust. We're on the front porch of the house I grew up in and I'm sitting down while the turtle is slowly moving closer to me. I want the turtle to like me but I'm also a little scared of it since it looks a bit creepy. I put a little peanut butter on my finger and place my finger near the ground. The turtle likes peanut butter and finally moves all the way toward me and takes the food.

A family friend of ours (who no one seems to really like) comes out the front door loudly, walks right up to the turtle and starts petting it. He ends up smearing the peanut butter all over the turtle's face and I'm worried the animal will get scared but at this point it seems happy and doesn't really react.

The camera pulls back to reveal we're actually on a TV set shooting a show called "1975-2005: Bert's Married Years". It follows Bert of Sesame Street's Ernie & Bert who is now married (to a woman!) and has a baby (also yellow). The show is reality-style and follows the couple around as they do chores like grocery shopping. Bert even drives a station wagon.

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Product Placement: Ray Ban Wayfarers

Rating: 8.  What you call a non sequitur at the end, I call a brilliant idea for a new show. It's VH-1 reality, but with puppets. And turtles.

Lost

A group of us have gone on vacation and rented a condo on a tropical island. We've wasted away the entire week getting sunburned by day and drinking by night. I later realize it's been far longer than a week and I actually haven't been to a single class all semester.

After a few months there, someone gets a call inviting us to a party at a mansion on the other side of the island. We've never been over there since we just lie around every day. The rest of the grou pleaves before me and it takes me a long time to find it on my own. When I arrive, the front of the house appears to be completely locked but the other side backs up right onto the water. You can basically swim under the house and up through a plunge pool to enter right from the ocean.

There are a few people already out in the water and I can't resist going for a swim. By the time I swim around the side of the house, it looks like no one is around anymore and it now looks like either it's the wrong house or the party has moved without me. I try to find my way back to our condo but get very lost; then try to get back to the mansion and get even more lost. I finally find a computer which has a virtual map of the island. You can create a character and place them wherever you want on the map. After hitting enter, you'll go there in real life.

Even on this map I can't find where I'm supposed to go so I choose an area that looks like it is filled with tees. As my virtual character walks through this forest, he gets skinnier and darker as though he is wilting away. He starts walking slower and get so skinny it looks like two lines walking - he seems near death. Then I notice a path exiting the forest. I guide the character unto the path and once it leaves the forest it turns back into me. I decide not to go there in real life.

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Rating: 7.  I figured eventually Second Life would make its way into my dreams. The settings are great and the story is interesting, even if the action is a bit slow.

Rocket Car

I'm on a business trip with  Saneel and a new guy and we're driving along a cliff. I am only half paying attention and the car veers off the cliff. Luckily, this car can do a manouever where you hit a button and it rockets straight up into the air, giving you the chance to reposition the car before it falls back to Earth. I pull off the move and get us back on the road but everyone is nervous after that and no one speaks the rest of the way.

An item appears in an advertising blog about a week later that I almost wrecked a car on a business trip. This is true but it's written like it's a hard-hitting expose. I'm actually flattered they've decided to write about me but incredulous about how mundane the subject is (they don't mention the part about it being a rocket car). I write back, commending them on their tough journalism and mentioning that I look forward to future pieces on what I eat for lunch and when I use the bathroom.

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Rating: 8.  The first part is just totally cool. It proves that other people should quit worrying. I've got it under control.