Boring Dream Believer

[vovat]

Am I alone in thinking Thanksgiving is a pretty lame holiday? You'd think I'd like a day devoted to eating, but turkey is something I can have a little of and not need more for a while. Why couldn't it be about eating shrimp? Anyway, even though I worked that day, it wasn't until evening and I was able to have dinner with bethje's family. Her mom is one of eight, so they have a pretty large family. Not all of them show up, but enough do to make the basement awfully crowded.

On Friday, I took Beth to see Peter Tork at New Hope Winery. There had been a Monkees tour earlier this year, but it was canceled prematurely, and she likes to see the former Monkees when they come to the area. He played with his band Shoe Suede Blues, and neither of us are all that keen on blues music, but it was pretty good. They did four Monkees songs in their set: "I'm a Believer," "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You" (I guess he felt Neil Diamond wasn't getting enough promotion already), "Daydream Believer," "Last Train to Clarksville," and "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone."


I found the Simpsons episode last night to seem rather phoned in. It wasn't too bad, but it kind of just went through the motions, without the conflict ever really amounting to much. And ending with the ridiculous cliché of someone trying to do two things in the same place? Yeah, I think they were making fun of it instead of just using it, but it wasn't that funny anyway. Well, aside from Mr. Burns saying he survived the wreck of the Titanic by making a raft out of steerage passengers. Burns is usually still pretty amusing even when the episodes themselves aren't, although the writers seem to have largely given up on the running gag of his always forgetting who Homer is. Come on, don't forget the classic jokes! As for Family Guy, with all the meta-episodes they've been doing recently, it's kind of nice to see a straightforward story every once in a while. Sure, jokes about the Amish are almost as outdated as the Amish themselves, but they worked pretty well anyway. Also, we finally get an episode that uses Meg as an actual character instead of a human punching bag. The roller coaster thing was kind of weird, as it's mostly older coasters that have problems with heavier riders, but whatever. And the highlight of American Dad was how calmly Roger took being dissected. It's too bad they killed off the alien hunter guy, as I think he might have been a good recurring character.

Sometimes I have a certain amount of control over my dreams. I'm not talking about that lucid dreaming stuff, which I'm not even sure is real, but simply that I sometimes mentally change things when something doesn't make any sense. Or sometimes it's just when something is boring, like how a recent dream about high school graduation rehearsal changed into one about a video game that involved shooting monsters with silver bullets. I wonder why graduation rehearsal came to my mind. That really was boring, and totally unnecessary. High school seniors, many of them legal adults, have to practice walking in a straight line? What the hell? I also frequently have dreams about going somewhere that I enjoyed before, like an amusement park or an Oz Convention, and not being able to do anything. This could be because nothing is happening, but it's more frequently because I'm with someone else who's not letting me. I must really dread boredom.

Comments

[slfcllednowhere.livejournal.com]

Why don't you think lucid dreams are real? I've definitely had them.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe they're real, but I've certainly never had one.

[slfcllednowhere.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. They definitely can happen though. We were just discussing them in last week's Cowtown as it happens, people were wondering how to make them happen and I was the only one there who has ever had any--the thing is I don't know any tricks for how to bring them on. They've always just happened with me. They are pretty cool though (though I usually waste mine on just trying to make John materialize rather than, like, flying or something).

[revme.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- I thought the Simpsons was super, super boring. But the Family Guy was the best one in a few weeks, which... well, isn't saying much, but I actually laughed at bits, so hooray!

Apparently the alien hunter guy was some sort of sports guy cameo? Shows what I know.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I know he said he was a former football player, but I didn't know whether he was a real or fictional one.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Yeah, apparently real. Huh. I found that out when the AV Club talked about the ep.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Oh dude, I'm sorry, you should have been at my aunt's house on Thanksgiving. My cousin is a restaurant manager (used to be Red Lobster, but he still does even now that he works a not-necessarily-seafood place) and he ALWAYS brings shrimp for an appetizer. This year he brought BUTTLOADS of it so there were even LEFTOVERS (in part possibly because my husband wasn't there to eat it). I don't even like shrimp myself. Gee, this was actually a pretty cruel comment for me to leave, wasn't it? Sorry.

I, like slfcllednowhere, have lucid dreams all the time and I don't know how they happen and couldn't tell anyone else how to do it. I don't get people who act like it's all mystical or something-- it's just a different way for your brain to act, I guess-- but it definitely exists. I do get different levels of control over it-- I've had things I tried to make happen that absolutely refused to happen, things that surprised me when I thought I totally knew what was going on, things that happened SORT of like I wanted but not quite-- just yesterday morning I had one that started out like you said, where I just changed something just by thinking about it although I hadn't TRIED to, but then when I REALIZED I had done so i decided to take full advantage and cause some other things to happen which I totally oughtn't to admit (though I did share it with a Twitter friend so it's hardly totally private, but still, must have some standards) and it was TOTALLY working and just when it was about to get REALLY GOOD, MY STUPID CLOCK RADIO ALARM WENT OFF. But it WOULD have worked, dangit.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Strangely, I don't like shrimp as much when they're chilled, which is how they often are when served as appetizers. I'll still eat them, though.

[bec-87rb.livejournal.com]

Wow. So that's what Peter Tork looks like now, eh? Hm.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he's had cancer, so he looks pretty old for his age.

[bethje.livejournal.com]

He's 69. Being super skinny and a life of drugs and drinkin' age a person, in addition to, like, their age.

[bethje.livejournal.com]

And tongue cancer.

Oh ho. I though he was late 50's for some reason

[bec-87rb.livejournal.com]

Peter doesn't look so bad for 69. I expect the skinny guys to have more wrinkles - see Leonard Nimoy v Bill Shatner.

Re: Oh ho. I though he was late 50's for some reason

[bethje.livejournal.com]

Aye. He is the oldest Monkee.