We've Got a Stacker!

I dreamed that I took my family to this new restaurant called Stackers.  It was a fancy, but very weird hamburger joint decorated nothing like a hamburger joint.  It had this amazingly ridiculous jungle theme.  Tree leaves and vines were hanging on everything and you could barely move without touching some kind of plant.  They did not need walls because the trees and shrubs obstructed your view of just about everything.

You would expect the wait staff to be dressed in some kind of Hawaiian garb, or maybe something tribal, but you'd be wrong on both counts.  They were wearing slacks, a tuxedo shirt and a vest.

The moment we were called to be seated my wife, kids and I were split up.  This was part of the restaurant schtick.  They split groups up and seat you just about anywhere they could find an open seat.  You could not avoid this.  All parties were broken up, no matter the age.

The restaurant predominantly sold stacked hamburgers; up to five or six stacks of meat, but they forbade anyone from doing the stacking themselves.  You could order a three stacked barbecue burger, but if you dared to order three barbecue burgers and stack them yourself, you could be ejected from the restaurant.

The whole of your meal the waiter staff walked around on the lookout for stackers. At any point in your meal you'd hear, “Are you stacking? That looks like stacking!” And you had to argue your case with the waiter that you weren’t stacking, these burgers came this way. But once in a while you’d hear, “WEVE GOT A STACKER!” And a group of waiters would come and move you by force. Stacking could get you ejected or just moved to another table. So people would take the risk that stacking would get them moved to a table near their party or they’d try to sabotage the strangers they were sitting with in hopes of making room for one of their original party to be reunited with them.

I spent the entire dream mostly confused about what was going on while at the table with some woman I didn't know.  At least three times in my dream we were having a pleasant conversation when a waiter came up to me and yelled, "Are you stacking?  That looks like you're stacking!"  I played a long at first, but by the third time I was tired of it.  As the waiter and I were arguing some kid claiming to be my son came running in and said, "Daddy, I told you it's against the rules to stack!"  So I just stood up and ran into the jungle of trees, hoping to find a table with someone I knew at it.

So... if I ever decide to change careers to "restaurateur"...

Kevin Smith big and Kevin Smith little

Kevin Smith big and Kevin Smith little

Kevin Smith had two bit parts in my dream last night.  He played them simultaneously; one as Kevin Smith before he lost the weight, the other as Kevin Smith now (after weight loss).  They were walking side by side in my dream.

So, in my dream sharks could swim underground.  Every now and then they’d swim up to the surface of the ground and eat someone.  After a while people figure out that the sharks could detect and locate humans by the sound and shock waves made by our walking.  In case you are thinking this plot sounds a lot like Tremors, you are correct.  I admit, my brain was not terribly creative last night, so it ripped-off an old, but awesome B movie.  But don’t judge me, Hollywood is way worse.  You know good and well you are planning on seeing Avengers 24 or Saw 19 or Aliens Recovenanted Again 2.

Anyway, I was walking through a parking lot with a large group of people; my two kids, some others I knew, some I did not; when we hear this sound from below. A person from the group I don’t know – we’ll call him Kevin Bacon – says something like, “Shit, it’s the sharks again.”

Kevin Smith big says, “Guys, stop moving.  We know they can hear us if we move.”

Kevin Bacon says, “We can’t just stand around here all day.  We’ve got to get to those cars.”

“No,” Kevin Smith big says, “We need to get to the boats.  Boats are safer.”

It’s at this point in the dream that I look out beyond the parking lot and see a dock full of boats that had hitherto not been there.

“Why boats?” I asked.

“Because these are sharks. They belong in the water.”  Kevin Smith big said.

In my dream this made perfect sense, even though every Jaws movie I’ve ever seen has some boat getting torn apart by a shark that then proceeds to eat everyone that had been in said boat.

So everyone is standing still, but we know it’s a losing situation.  We can hear the sharks circling below us.  Then Kevin Bacon says, “No way, man, if we all move at once, as least some of us can get to the boats.”  But no one moves, not even Kevin Bacon.

Then Kevin Smith little says, “Man, you just want us to move so the sharks come for us.  Then you can make a run for it while we get eaten.”

Then we hear another sound and Kevin Bacon says something like, “Screw this,” and he starts to run.  But he doesn’t make it more than a few feet when the square of sidewalk he’s on juts up from the ground and he falls head first to the other side.  In my dream we never see the shark because I have a very low budget dream factory.  But we do see Kevin Bacon get dragged below ground kicking and screaming.

At that point, Kevin Smith big and Kevin Smith little yell, “Now’s our chance!” and they start to run.  Several others from the group of those I don’t know run as well.  My kids look back at me, but I’m frozen in fear.  So they choose to stay still.

In the distance I hear some people get eaten and others get to safety.  Kevin Smith and Kevin Smith both make it aboard a boat.

Finally, a little too late, my kids and I make a break for a nearby boat.  A shark gives chase, but we make it in time.  Sadly, the boat I chose was in dry dock, so we aren’t exactly home free.  The dream gets weird after that.  

We find some paragliders in the boat’s storage.  I’ve been playing a lot of the Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, in which you use a paraglider a good bit.  So my kids and I use paragliders to sail down from the boat, several hundred yards to the ocean, where once in the water we are safe from the sharks.

Then my wife comes by in another boat and picks up and the dream is over.

-The part of "First Guy Eaten By Sharks" was played by Kevin Bacon.  Kevin Bacon was not actually in my dream last night, but I figured that since this was clearly a Tremors rip-off, and since Kevin Bacon was the main character of the first Tremors movie, he should have a role. 

Two Pack!

I had a dream that I worked out really hard for a while and managed to get the top two segments of my abdominal muscles (rectus abdominis) in shape.  So I had a two pack and below that I had my normal gut.  In my dream the two pack was smooth, but the rest of my gut and chest were hairy.  So I guess I just shaved the part of my stomach that I was proud of.

Anyway, I showed my two pack to my wife and she was not impressed.  In fact, she was a little jealous that I was getting in shape faster than her.  For the record, on the average of our marriage my wife has been in shape FAR MORE than I ever have.

So, that’s it.  It wasn’t a stellar dream this time.  No revelations about Tom Cruise or David Bowie or Joey Ramone.  Just a short snippet predicting a future where I manage to work out enough to whip 2% of my body into shape.

2018 Resolution (twelfth verse, same as the first)

Hello, Blog!  Happy New Year!

2017 was fairly busy and, as you probably guessed in early 2017 when I said I was going to try and post more in 2017, I failed.

I actually didn’t totally fail.  I post to social media at least once a week.  But I usually post to Instagram. Instagram has a very user friendly app and it is more conducive to art than the Blogger app – which in my opinion sucks.  So I do most of my Blogger blogging on my work computer.  That’s not so great when you are posting to some accounts all over creation, at any time of day, but you have to wait until the following morning in the office to catch up in other accounts.

Don’t get me wrong, Instagram does have its limitations.  If it was perfect, I’d simply transfer all of my Blogger posts to Instagram and delete this account.  Instagram is great for posting art, but it is my personal opinion that the writing I post with my art frequently – though not always – gets overlooked.  And since I fancy myself a writer, this doesn’t sit well with me.  Blogger is my one account where I can feel free to go on and on and on and on………… (crickets chirping).  

Ok, technically I can do this on my Tumblr account too, but there is still something missing with Tumblr.  It’s hard to put my finger on it, but I just can’t get used to the format.  Suffice it to say that this Blogger account was my first foray into social media and I’m reticent to just let it go.  So, I'm not going to.

Resolution:

So, in 2018 I am – again – going to try to sync my accounts so that, for the most part, what is on one account will be on all accounts.

Due to the difference in formatting, there will be slight discrepancies between one account an another.  For example, most of what I post on Blogger or Tumblr or Instagram won't go on Twitter because of character limitations, but some will.  Also, Facebook is a giant waste of time, so I probably won’t post anything to it at all.