Fear the Crab

Don’t remember too much of what the dream was, but I know that Maile and I had taken Titan to this unfamiliar school. I couldn’t tell what kind of school it was (ie, elementary vs intermediate), but the fields were big and had plenty of room. I was leading Titan on a merry chase, letting him get his exercise, when I found myself in a different section of the campus. There was a picnic-party going on, with a whole crowd of people. Then this second great dane appeared and I knew it was a female, but she looked exactly like Titan. Titan and I were still running around (while Maile was off somewhere, probably laughing at us), and now the second dog joined in. So I had two great danes mock-chasing me around the field, and I kept thinking that I was going to trip and fall what with so many legs around me.

Today was another boring day. Same old same old at work, it being Monday and a run night. The duty free run was surprisingly light, but that only meant I had more time to be bored.

Maile thinks it odd that I think about her a lot. I say it’s probably the only thing that’s keeping me sanely quirky.

I don’t remember too much, except that Maile and I were working for a syndicate whose boss was John Travolta, and he assigned me to scoop four different cereals into a mixture of what looked ranch dressing. The four cereals were Rice Crispies, Cocoa Crispies, Raisin Bran, and I think Cocoa Pebbles. I needed to take one tablespoon of each and dump it into the mixture, until the bowl was filled. Surprisingly, the four bags of cereal turned into women, whose hair was the color of the cereal I was scooping up. What was even more strange was that I would continue scooping, and this time I would scoop into their hair and come out with cereal. It seemed like they were prisoners of Travolta, and they tried to talk to me and get me to release them, but I kept scooping cereal because I didn’t want to get Travolta mad at me, not to mention I had no idea where Maile had gone off to, and I was worried that if I did something bad, something worse would happen to her.

Work was blah, as usual. There was nobody to talk to, so it was quite a relief to be able to take a break and talk to Maile on the cell phone. During work, I busied myself not by helping customers or tidying up the store, but rather jotting down some notes for a new zone I was planning to build on CheesyMUD. It’s a step up from the areas I previously built, because it’s going to incorporate several aspects I’ve never tried before (like mini-quests). It sounds hunky-dory in theory, but the actual implementation of my ideas may or may not pan out.

It seemed that I was not the only one who had a blah day. Maile related her excruciating experience at the beach. One might think it strange that people from Hawaii have bad experiences with beaches, but rest assured it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. It was hot, the food was late in preparation, and those foodstuffs that were ready were quickly gobbled up by inconsiderate clods that had all the manners of a grapefruit.

Maile and I are a bit apprehensive about our respective classes this fall. It’s a mixture of not knowing what to expect and whether or not we’re capable of handling the workload. In the end the only thing we can do is hope, and try our best.

Tonight’s Invader Zim episode(s):
Attack of the Saucer Morons
The Wettening

Maile came to visit me at work today, and that was a most pleasant surprise. She had just finished dinner with Lori at a restaurant called Buca de Beppo (sp?), an Italian place at the Ward Entertainment Center. I had paged Maile during their dinner, and since they were in the neighborhood, they both decided to drop in and see how I was doing. It made the rest of work more bearable, especially since I was able to meet Maile at Zippy’s for a quick bite to eat. Maile just had a chocolate shake, while I had a hot cake sandwich.

I told Maile that the next time she visits, she has to bring Titan. We both had a big laugh about that, because he’d probably freak out the whole of Waikiki. In any case, I can still see him when I drop by her house, so it’s no big loss for me.

I was in Longs with a whole bunch of co-workers. We were there because we were on our way to the beach, and we wanted to get things. Strangely enough, the items we were getting had nothing to do with the beach at all, and we were all in our duty free uniforms. I remember browsing the shelves for things that I wanted, and as I walked around, I traveled close to the windows and the door that lead outside. I looked outside to see what the weather was like, when suddenly I didn’t look where I was going and ended up nearly stepping out of the store with a basket full of merchandise. Thankfully I managed to steer away from certain doom before I crossed the line, but I kept thinking that Longs was going to send a security guard to check up on me. While browsing for gum, I noticed an undercover security officer trailing me. But I wasn’t hiding anything, and if he approached me I was going to tell him the truth, that I wasn’t watching where I was going, and in my dream that actually would have worked.

I went to pay, and was standing behind two other customers. It was odd that Longs’ registers were all inside little booths, and these booths formed a circular island in the middle of the store. There were these separators that you’d find at airports or Disneyland, which would accommodate long lines. The first customer left, then the second mentioned something to the sales clerk, and the two of them left the store. Those of us in line, especially me since I was next, began to wonder what was going on. I looked over to the door, and noticed that there were four sales clerks standing around there, just talking. Meanwhile, everybody else was done with their shopping, and they came by to see what was taking so long. I explained what was happening, as far as I could tell it, then I noticed that the line was getting super long, even at some of the other registers.

Eventually the sales clerk came back, and I got ready to pay. Unfortunately, she came back with another customer, and took her in front of everybody so she could be rung up. This happened twice more, and apparently it’s because this dream Longs had special 10-minute parking stalls for customers, meaning that if you parked there, you had top priority to be serviced because you only had 10 minutes. At this point I was getting quite upset, especially after being snubbed in line and all the other sales clerks not doing anything to help out. Irene and Min kept coming by to find out what was taking so long, and even Maile came into the store. Finally it was my turn, and strangely instead of having a basket full of little knick knacks, I was buying a pair of boots that in reality I got a couple weeks ago. My dream total ended up being over 200 dollars for one pair of boots. When I was done with my transaction, I stepped one window over to their service counter, where a young man was there. I asked if he was the manager, and he said yes. I then proceeded to tell him everything that went wrong with my visit. I said that I could understand how the clerks needed to service those people in the 10-minute stalls, but that left no excuse to have four other clerks standing around talking story while the line gets longer and longer. The manager seemed sympathetic.

However, before he could do anything or say anything in response, I found myself watching an anime cartoon detailing the end of a futuristic civilization. There was some sort of nuclear blast, or that’s what I was led to believe judging from what I was seeing. I remember the scene was underground, and there was a subway train that transported people to different sections of the underground city. There was no sound (it was a dramatic moment, I guess), and I felt that this cartoon was really cool because of the way they drew and how they wove their story. When the subway doors opened, no one came out, but rather this melting heat wave spilled out and turned the area into an oven. Even the walls were melting.

Here, the details of my dream are blurry, but I do remember an escape pod containing a robot and a monkey, crash landing on a planet. The monkey survived, but the robot did not, and the robot was the only thing that could tell the monkey what to do on this new planet. The monkey then turned into a group of five people, all trying to figure out their role on this new planet (which looked like Earth). I was among those people, and I remember opening up the flood gates in our yard and watching all this water spill out into the street. We wanted to judge the peoples’ reaction, and their reaction was to throw baseballs through our windows. I got rather sick of that, so I decided to leave and take a walk down the street, which led me to be find myself…

…in Longs, with a whole bunch of co-workers. We were there because we were on our way to the beach, and we wanted to get things. Strangely enough…

That little loop forced me out of my dream, with help from a power saw.

Work surprisingly kept me busy. I suppose it’s not too abnormal, considering that Fridays are run nights and the night hours are generally the busiest. Still, it was a change from previous months of boredom. Thankfully I did not have to help that many customers, since I took it upon myself to put away most of the run. I did have to break down and sell things to people, though.

When school starts, I’ll be seeing less and less of Maile than I care to think about. We both have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but mine start in the morning and finish around lunchtime, while hers start at lunchtime and finish in the late evening. Then she has to work the next day. Combine that with my working more nights, and it seems only Wednesdays and perhaps Saturdays are when I will get a chance to see her. That also means I won’t get to see Titan as often.

In the name of all dairy products, WHY?!

Tonight’s Invader Zim episode:
A Plague of Babies

I was on my way to a party at a restaurant, which was thrown by the Japanese club. I was in a sectioned limousine, sectioned because there was a compartment in the car for the front seat, middle seat, and rear seat. There were five other people with me, three women and two men, all of whom were also going to the party. We were delayed by weird circumstances, such as having to change our clothes because what we were wearing wasn’t fancy enough, and making pit stops at shopping malls so someone could browse shelves.

By the time we got to the restaurant, it was quite late, and I knew that we were going to get into trouble. To make matters worse, there was a lot of our things still in the car, what with having to change and all. I asked if we should take everything, and everyone said no, that it was all right. So we all left the limousine, and headed up some stairs for the restaurant. Yet I was feeling that we should have taken our stuff, because the limousine wasn’t ours, it was like we rented it. I ran back downstairs, but unfortunately, the car was gone, with all our belongings.

I was quite pissed at everybody, and stormed back upstairs to confront them. However, I couldn’t find them. Instead there were some people I had never seen in my life, such as a “club” of geeky-looking people that greeting each other by pressing their faces against one another and yelling Tarzan-like words. It almost seemed to me that they were the animation club. There was also a club of drama enthusiasts, but they seemed to also like brown, styled hair and heavy makeup. I recall one of my college friends as being in that group, but rather than go and talk to her, I settled for smoking a cigarette and waiting for Maile to come to my rescue. She was on her way, but before she arrived, the party was over, and people began to ask me in Japanese how to catch the bus or taxi home. Seeing as it was so late, I wasn’t sure if the buses were still running, so I went to look for a phone book that had the information phone number. For some weird reason, I couldn’t find it, and given my mood from earlier events, I decided to give up. Before I could cry, or continue my cigarette, I woke up.

Today Maile and I took Titan to the dog park. It was a bit rainy and very humid, but it was enjoyable. Titan even ran around the park like an excitable dog, but it required me to act as something to chase. We didn’t stay that long because it was too hot and Titan was getting tired (or so we led ourselves to believe). I’d say an hour was the longest we spent there.

Had “breakfast” food for dinner: scrambled eggs, bacon, portuguese sausage and rice. It filled me up pretty decently, and I took an hour nap.

Today was payday. Nice timing, considering the extortionable amount of money I spent the past week. I still wish I had more hours, though.

Didn’t do too much today except pretend I was a mushroom. The temperature in my room kept that daydream to a minimum, however.

I ate at Stuart Anderson’s with my family and relatives. I had the whiskey NY steak with petite lobster tail and Texas shrimp. I couldn’t finish it all, what with the salad and Wagon Wheel appetizers. The leftovers will be tomorrow’s dinner. My mom and dad shared a prime rib combo with fried prawns (or something like that). My aunt and uncle used my dad’s coupon for a “dinner for two” consisting of prime rib and shrimp, with that chocolate cake that sinks to the bottom of your stomach. Maile also had the prime rib and fried prawns, if I remember correctly. What with so much prime rib, and my own plate overflowing with food, it’s hard to remember what everyone had.

I discovered something strange about the wireless internet card I bought yesterday. When I tried to run the PC card settings, it told me there were no drivers for it. It’s strange because according to Windows, I have four different drivers for the card. I tried checking online for any updates to the drivers, but I couldn’t find any in the places I looked (Windows update, ORiNOCO site). I will wait until school starts to talk to the IT department and see what they can do, otherwise I’ll contact tech support for answers. It looks like the first day of school will be a long one for me.