Something I’ve seen many times over the years over the years on television and the Internet is people saying that talking about one’s dreams makes one a bore. Basically what it all boils down to is the message that “Yeah, dreams are weird, we get it.” Well I hate to go against television and the Internet, but I am here to say that I totally like hearing about dreams. I often like hearing about dreams more than I like hearing about actual things that have happened to people.

Maybe somehow the complainers have just been so overwhelmed by descriptions of dreams that it has grown tiresome, but as someone who doesn’t do a whole lot of talking to people (and talking about dreams makes up such a small, small portion of that talking) this is not a problem for me. I love the surreality of dreams so much that my own occasionally remembered dreams are not enough to fill my interest. Hearing about good strangeness from the subconsciousnesses of others is the only way I can think to fill the void.

I’m not, however, one of those people who likes analyzing what the “symbols” in dreams mean. My dreams are typically so bizarre that I have doubt that any such meaning is in there. Plus, the oddness is what I like most about the dreams, so why ruin it?

With this in mind I’m going to repost something from the Contains2 era. Though the dream in question happened years earlier, I had discussed it often enough that the details were still fresh in my mind on Saturday 22 of June 2002 when I posted this:

The OJ Simpson Bus-Boat Dream

Okay, I had this dream once, years ago (I think it was in grade ten, so whichever year that was). I’ve had myself a lot of strange dreams (and it seems like 75% of them are set in malls, is there some sort of symbolism behind that?) but this dream is up there in it’s not being surreal, not just being wacky. I’ve told it to many people, and now I’m going to write it up here to prevent me from forgetting even more of it than I already have.

I don’t think it actually started at this point, but this is where my memories kick in:

I’m in my own house, and I’m a butler. I’m going through my various duties and I happen to look out my window. Just as it does in the real world the window has a view of the Atlantic Ocean. Out there, driving on the ocean at the horizon is a bus, which I immediately recognize as the OJ Simpson Bus-Boat. Not finding this at all strange, I go back to work.

But when I look out the window again, I see that the Bus-Boat has changed course. It’s heading directly for my house! I dive away from the window, and I hear the Bus-Boat crashing onto the area in front of my house.

Things get blurry right here again, but I think I talked to my parents for a few minutes about the Bus-Boat having crashed in front of our house. When my memory comes clear again…

A panoramic, birds-eye-view of the Bus-Boat (now that it is on land it’s a boat. A military ship actually, maybe even a carrier) as it is cordoned off by military personnel and helicopters circle it (military or media? I couldn’t tell you). It’s about the size that such a boat would really be, and takes up the length of my street (Himmelman Drive, Boy!). In the real world, the road is curved, but the boat manages just fine.

Things get blurry again and then me and a guy who I knew from school at the time are disguising ourselves as water deliverymen to sneak into the Bus-Boat. I don’t know what happened inside, but when we came out I had found a secret device: An Electric Arm!

I don’t think my memory is blurry here, I think the dream just skipped scenes and suddenly I was wearing the Electric Arm and leading a team of commandos or mercenaries or something. We’re fighting this ogre and he’s got us cornered on a winding staircase that has a big brass pole at its center. The ogre repeatedly charges at us and I hold him off by hitting him with the Electric Arm. Each time I strike the ogre numbers fly out of him and he moves back. Eventually we’re at the top of the stairs and the ogre is at the bottom resting against the brass pole. Brilliantly, I use my Electric Arm on the pole, sending a shock down and forcing the ogre to run away.

I think the dream went on, but that is all I can still remember. For a dream I had like six years ago, I think that’s pretty good. (Wow! I don’t even think I did the math wrong, I think it really has been six years since grade ten.)
If there is any meaning behind that dream, I certainly don’t get it.

Little Choy!

Phone Guys.

I am doing an awesome and hilarious prank for April Fool’s Day this year, everyone.

Haha! Gotcha! I’m not actually not doing anything (other than this post I guess), because I genuinely don’t actually care about April Fool’s Day.

Hooray!

No, this post is not a farewell to Inspector Gadget’s resourceful niece. I’ll never say goodbye to her because she was a good role model for girls of my generation who will hopefully be remembered forever. Also, she’s fictional, so my saying goodbye would be ridiculous.

This post is about how Canada is now in the process of phasing out the penny. I assume that everyone is so interested in what my thoughts are on the topic that they would lose sleep AND lose consciousness if I don’t discuss immediately. So here goes:

So Canada is finally getting rid of the penny, eh? Well, I’m for it. I’ve already lived through the Canadian Dollar Bill and Two Dollar Bill being turned into the Loonie and the Toonie respectively, so I’m an old pro at this whole, monetary changes thing. I’ve been getting used to changes in money for years. You might even say I’ve CASHED OUT of this situation before, if you really didn’t care enough to think of a proper joke.* So I’m confident that the populace of The Houses, The Village will surely adapt quickly and the unneeded unit will be a fondly remembered part of our past, but not missed.

And good riddance. Speaking as someone with a tendency to carry a lot of change in his coat pocket, I can say that pennies add up faster in being a space-wasting nuisance than they add up in monetary value. And I might be sad if we were losing a coin that had an animal or boat on it, but it’s just the maple leaf. We’ve got that on tons of other stuff, so we won’t miss it. It’ll still be with us. Also, copper is supposed to be a really valuable resource isn’t it? People actually break into buildings to steal wires and stuff its so valuable. Well, now we’re gonna have way more copper that we aren’t wasting. That’ll help. We’ll have more resources to use on more important things.

So sleep well, people, knowing that PDR approves of the phasing out of the Canadian penny. And on top of it all, even though the logic-using parts of my brain know it isn’t remotely true, I can still tell the substantial rest of my brain that we’re getting a step closer to my dream of one day living in a world without money. Hooray!

* I really don’t care about making a better joke. Not worth the effort.

Hey, what’s all this then? The new SecGov story is about Stanislav Blue. What are the odds?

It’s no secret that my least favorite part of doing a webcomic is the drawing part, so it’s even more important that the art duties for this short story will be provided by Marq! Thanks Marq!

Man, this post is late. I was so caught up in my International Robot Day celebrations, I must have forgot all about the Monday comics update I’m supposed to do. Or some excuse anyway.

Anyway, here’s the Phone Guys:

As I mentioned a few years ago, I once decided that March 25th is International Robot Day. Then I decided to stick with it. Nobody has the power to stop me!

And this is March 25th! Happy International Day to everyone, but especially to robots.

One time, also years ago, I was bored at work and I decided the solution was to draw this:

(I didn’t save the file, but I printed it, so now we have this scan)

If not for this drawing, I would not at all even remember that I had chosen an International Robot Day. But when I started making an actual webcomic about robots, I looked at this drawing and decided to use that robot design as Stanislav Blue. PDR never leaves a character behind. Someday, I probably should get around to doing a story about Stanislav. Hmm.

Okay, so this is my second attempt at doing a post today, the first having been met with some sort of error that prevented it from working. What the chunks was that about, Internet?

Take note: with yesterday’s post we come to the rushed conclusion of the most recent SecGov story. That one kinda drifted away from where I had planned to take it and then, when it came time to wrap it up, I didn’t have much room left. My next story shall hopefully be better structured. That’s what this is after all, an attempt to learn how to do this crap.

But before I get to that next story, we’ve got something altogether different for SecGov next week. More on that, next week.

Haiku!

Why go to the moon?
I like it better right here.
I don’t want to go.

Man, what does that haiku have against the moon? I mean, sure, maybe it is a lot of effort to get there, there’s not much to see when you get there, and there’s a lot of risk of something going wrong, but… well, no, I guess I agree with the haiku now. Still, if we got our act together and did more space work, we’d have most of those problems fixed

So we definitely had some warm weather the last couple days. My apartment had the kind of sweltering hard-to-sleep daytimes that I associate with Summer. It’s cooler today, so my sleep was more efficient, you will all be glad to know.

Anyway, there was probably more to have said, but I’m not going to bother, instead opting to end here and find out if it post this time.

What do we have hear? Two English-speaking gentlemen in the Sixties who have a problem. They gotta find space in Montreal to have a World’s Fair, but oh man, they don’t have room! But what if they build it on the water? Haha, how would that work? Oh, they can build an island. And they did. Happy ending.

Okay, this time out, I’m a little stumped. I mean, I do remember this Canadian Propaganda Commercial, I must have seen it in my youth enough times to absorb the information. I recognized the situation and knew the solution, but apparently my mind had managed to forget some of the details.

I didn’t remember it being black and white for example. I see no reason for it to be in black and white. I mean, is it done to evoke the era? If so, you’re kinda pushing it. 1963 still had black and white television as the standard, I believe, but I don’t think anyone associates the Sixties with B&W the way the Fifties were. And anyway, we’ve had Heritage Moments set during the black and white television era that were in color. And we’ve had ones set before that which weren’t told as books. There is simply no need for this “artistic” choice. You lose points for this, commercial. Also, the music is pretty ridiculous, but probably does fit the era for all I know.

Our gentlemen solve their problem by remembering that there are subway tunnels being built, so let us use that dirt for something, shall we? This I approve of. It is a useful synergy of resources. Well done, chaps. Two birds with one stone and all that. While it is almost certain that the conversation never took place in real life as it does here, someone had that idea and that is the point we’re trying to get across. Success there.

I don’t think either of these men is identified. The first line may say the name of one of them, but I can’t make it out. (I think it is “Hey Guy, we’re supposed to be at city hall.” But I doubt that the one guy who absolutely less French would be called Guy with that pronunciation.) A mayor is name-dropped at the end, but in all, I’ve learned basically nothing about any historical figures here. I guess I learned that Ile Notre-Dame was man-made (and that it exists), which I didn’t know. But that’s it.

Anyway, I can see Young-Me didn’t bother accurately storing this one in his brain. Not worth the effort. Two out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake.

Meanwhile, you know what we could all use more of? World’s fairs. Let’s get on that.

Phone Guys: