Phantasmic Links 6.5.06

Sunday morning I had the most bizarre dream. I found myself stuck behind Hurley on an escalator at some big hotel as I was leaving a comic book convention. Finally, we reached the ground floor, and I walked out the glass doors on to my front lawn, where I entered my house via our back door by the verandah. In my living room I found a three-legged rottweiler, a rottweiler puppy, and two other animals I didn't notice at first. The dogs made me nervous, but I soon realized they had been highly trained by their previous owners and obeyed when I told them to sit and stay. The other two animals, a gorilla and a brown bear, were doing the same, and that's when I realized, “Holy crap, there's a freaking BEAR in my living room! How can that be?!” Slowly, continuing to say “sit...” even as the dogs started to growl, I backed toward the door. It was at this moment Hurley chose to open it and, in doing so, let my frightened cat run past me and across the street. “Sorry dude,” he apologized as the dogs bounded after poor Mister Chirp. I could see him running back and forth from the dogs in our neighbors yard, but for some reason a construction crew had chosen that exact moment to lower concrete barricades into our pachysandra. My cat was trapped across the street with the dogs, and I was trapped in my yard with a bear and the fat guy from Lost. Then I woke up.

Dreams are weird, especially mine. I was able to piece together the ingredients from my subconscious. I had passed a construction crew on my way to work last week, lowering concrete barricades alongside the road. I suppose the gorilla was related to seeing Gorilla Grodd recently in a few episodes of J.L.U. The dogs were definitely elements taken from the film Half Baked, which I'd watched two nights prior. As a quick side note here, I should point out that I've never smoked anything other than a cigar once at an office party, and I still find Jim Breuer to be an obnoxious prick, but I'm slowly becoming a fan of Dave Chappelle and catching up on his body of work. As for the bear, it made absolutely no sense until later in the day when I was mowing my lawn. I nearly rolled over something small and brown, about the size of a softball, and I turned it over to reveal a tiny stuffed bear one of the neighborhood kids must have dropped. I set it carefully on a large rock overlooking the driveway, and continued my work, satisfied that the last piece of my odd dream had fallen in to place. Dreams are usually blended memories, but sometimes I find them to be vague hints of things to come. I've never foreseen anything major, just trivial things that would subsequently pass my line of sight like that stuffed bear. I have no explanation for it, but I do have this week's PHANTASMIC LINKS:

Raveformer may well be the greatest thing I've discovered online this week, if not ever. I’ve watched it at least twice a day, if not more, since discovering it.

The new Batwoman is a lipstick lesbian. While you may already have read this at Sean's earlier this week, I just needed to throw in a sentence to increase my hits from search engines. My work here is done.

Inevitably, feline aficionados would dedicate a web site to Cats in Sinks.

Big Orange Michael settles the “Kirk vs. Picard” debate for Star Trek nerds once and for all.

I'm good at brain teasers normally, but ClickDragType stumped me after solving but one out of the ten puzzles. How far can you get?

Legal issues keep Bumblebee from being a Volkswagon Beetle in next year's live action Transformers movie, and here are photos showing what he'll actually be. I thought the police car in that gallery would logically be Prowl, until I noticed the Decepticon insignia, and now I'm wondering if any of the characters will be the vehicles they were in the original 80s cartoon. Like Lyndon I have some concerns about these changes, but will remain cautiously optimistic until I start seeing actual trailers for the film.

At last, the real future for the cast of Final Fantasy VII is revealed. Hat tip to Sarcasmo.

Is it possible to take pictures if your camera lens is made of ice? One photographer says “yes” and proves it.

Note to self: never chase Mentos with Diet Coke... It would also be very bad to do the same with Pepsi...