I had the strangest dream last night. It started with my being at work at the library and it involved a possessed collection of old pop-up books, a wheelchair bound psychic (who looked more like Frankie Muniz than Professor X), an unexplained celestial event in which the Earth was orbited by two moons, zombies/ghosts that moved like that girl in The Ring, blizzards, a good friend who has been away for many months, text messaging to open a portal to the other side, and a lonely princess who just wanted to talk to someone. Yes, all that from the same dream. How on earth do those pieces go together, you ask? Allow me to attempt an explanation.

I was at work at the library. Somehow, in the midst of doing my other duties, I came across the collection of possessed pop-up books. If I recall correctly, I was either told, or had heard tell of a former library employee who had discovered that the books were possessed but was not believed. But it was indeed true that ye olde pop-up books were possessed, but not by an evil spirit. No, they were possessed by a princess whose spirit was trapped inside the books somehow and was very lonely because she had no one to talk to but herself. Enter the psychic. The Frankie Muniz-like, wheelchair bound psychic was visiting the library for some reason and the trapped princess wanted me to contact him so that she could talk to him. Now, why she needed a psychic when she was clearly communicating with me is unclear. I am undoubtedly un-psychic and was just as un-psychic as always in the dream. So maybe she wasn’t quite talking to me, but I was gleaning bits from urban legend and from the texts? Regardless, the plot had to progress somehow and so I diligently attempted to tell the psychic the princess’s plight. However, the psychic was in a meeting with some library bigwigs, and I couldn’t get to him to tell him the princess’s tragic tale. Despite my efforts to crash the bigwigs’ meeting (at one point I told a supervisor about the possessed pop-up books and received some skeptical looks), I instead had to settle for waiting outside their conference room, trying to telepathically get the psychic’s attention. End part I.

Now, it was closing time at the library. As I was trying to get things in order for the end of the day, many strange things occurred. As I tried to take up my last cartload of books for the day, I found the elevator was already being commandeered by another coworker with many empty carts. After negotiating some way of sharing the elevator, the coworker gave me condolences on the death of my grandfather. I n the dream, this seemed to make sense, even though it was unexpected and unrelated to anything else in the dream. The strange occurence of two moons and the eclipse of Saturn by one of those moons was observed. My friend Celia appeared and, after having traveled abroad for some time, had returned, also intrigued by the urban legends surrounding the possessed pop-up books. I tried to dissuade her from investigating further, whether for her safety or for the safety of the books, I cannot recall. However, she was not to be dissuaded, and this point, the zombie-related adventures began.

Regardless of my failure to obtain the aid of the psychic, Celia and I were able to embark on a mission to help free the princess’s trapped spirit. Although I remember getting a rather detailed explanation of what was happening at the time, the details of this part are a little fuzzy. What I do recall is that there was some kind of alternate world/dimension that we had to cross over to in order to help the princess, however, crossing into that world required unleashing some kind of zombie/ghost people that we had to avoid. Basically, when we wanted to cross over into the other world, we had to first escape the zombie ghosts who also wanted to cross into the other world. This became rather harrowing, as we had to text message the other side to find out where the portal would open. All the while, the zombie ghosts would pursue us. This unfortunate set-up between the world of mortal beings and ‘the other side” resulted in the dream’s dramatic finale (ie, he last thing that happened when my alarm work me up). Celia and I were trying to cross to the other side and somehow became trapped in this glass enclosure that was something like an elevator lobby. Outside, however, it seemed the world was falling apart. A bone-chilling blizzard of swirling snow and ash was swirling furiously around our little elevator-lobby shelter, blocking out any view of the outside world. And of course, we were trapped inside with the zombie ghosts, unsuccessfully trying to find a portal and cross over to safety. The last I remember one of us had opened on of the glass doors in an attempt to freeze the zombies to death, and then… I woke up.

I was a little disappointed at being unable to see how my sleeping brain was going to try to work things out, but frankly, the fight with the zombie ghosts wasn’t going all that well in the first place. Perhaps it is best that I woke up when I did. Perhaps I should also just stop watching horror movies before bed time ;-)

Tomorrow I head back to the Windy City to begin a new year of mischief-making and overall unproductiveness. Stay tuned!

Aaaaah, it’s good to be home. Not that I wasn’t home before. Phoenix will always be home in many ways. But Chicago is home too, and it’s good to be back. Already I’ve had several tasty outings with friends and cut off our cadaver’s face in search of parotid glands and the elusive facial nerve. And don’t you love I can mention food and dead bodies in one single breath. Yummy! And now that I’m back to trolling my favorite blogs, I’ve also discovered some delightful t-shirts which I absolutely must own someday:


Yes, that does say Intramural Zobie Hunting League!

What could be more awesome than an Intramural Zombie Hunter t-shirt? Possibly the Thirsty for Blood, Hungry for Tacos shirt, although the blood spattering on the Zombie Hunter one really does put it in a league of it’s own. Although what I actually like best about the site (the part that makes me think I might actually purchase a shirt here some day) is the ending of their about us page. I know so many folks out there who can relate.

I should be finishing getting ready to go to class right now, but I’m not. I’m now starting to think that I should not take the second half of the med school class this term. As much asI enjoyed the experience last term, I’m not sure how much I’m getting out of it now. I’m still learning things, but I suspect that the 12 hours a week that the course requires would probably be better spent working on my own researching and writing. Right now, I’ve made very little progress since my stalemated attempt at a proposal defense in December and that needs to change. I need to really start moving forward with my work, especially since it has become clear in the past week that my own program isn’t going to make any effort support me in these last stages. And when you’re in completely dysfunctional program at a completely dysfunctional university, you have to resist the impulse to be completely dysfunctional yourself.

1. Eleven City Diner makes egg cream sodas.  OMG YAY!!!

2. One should not operate (on people, Trauma Center patients, or Roombas) when hyped up on caffeine.

3. The Patriots are likely going to win the Superbowl.

4. I really should get some of my actual work done :-) 

When I first heard about this sleeper indie hit, I thought for sure that it wouldn’t be my cup of tea. For one thing, the mere label of “indie” conjures images in my mind of a bunch of emo hipsters trying too hard to be deep. Second, the label “musical” made me fear that the aforementioned hipsters were going to burst into song in some horribly contrived attempt to be clever and tongue-in-cheek. Granted, my initial preconceptions weren’t entirely inaccurate. Yet, Once still managed to win me over with its quirky cuteness and strange sense of optimism.

The film is hard to describe to someone who hasn’t already seen it. There isn’t really a story. If anything, I looked at it as a combination of something like an extended music video and a rockumentary, even though it wasn’t quite either. The film simply follows one heartbroken musician and his chance encounter with an attractive immigrant who also shares a passion for music. I’ve seen the film described by many as a love story, and I think it is that. But as I saw it, the love wasn’t so much between the two main characters as it was for the music. The way the movie was filmed with the cameras zoomed in on the action from a distance let the interactions between characters and bystanders look completely organic. In so doing, it brought to the fore the awkwardness of everyday life. Some reviewers have described these moments as “bad acting,” but I read them as being more true to life than pretty much any other film or television show I’ve ever seen. And yet, these moments contrast with the only times when the characters look completely comfortable: when they are performing, both for each other or in the recording studio.

While I do think the label “musical” doesn’t aptly fit what this film does, it is undeniable that the driving force behind the film is the music. But it isn’t because the film is a showcase for catchy songs. The palpable energy that the songs inject into the film came, in my opinion, more from the cathartic role the songs play in the lives of the characters. This can be seen early on in the film where the main character seems only able to talk about what went wrong in his former relationship through singing the cute but also revealing “Broken Hearted Hoover Sucker Guy” song on the bus. But the climax comes when their awkward (and even antagonistic) relationships melt away to become an almost surreal experience of familial togetherness as their music achieves unexpected sublimity in the recording studio. And while I could easily see someone walking out of the film still thinking it was about a bunch of emo hipsters trying too hard to be deep, I nonetheless found myself sharing in the characters’ happiness, if only for a few moments.

I think what was crucial in keeping this film from looking like a trite tale of misfits finding a home á la Breakfast Club was the lack of a pointed narrative to drive the film. There was no ending anymore than there was a real beginning, and I could believe that what I was seeing was in some sense an origin story of a band whose success or failure is utterly irrelevant. The movie plays like a memory–a snapshot in time of a particularly happy moment in the lives of these characters. But it was a moment that was clearly ephemeral, and to me, that made it believable. This isn’t a Hollywood-type movie where every line of dialog is perfect and the story move inexorably toward a tidy end. It was more like a home video of a slightly faded memory, none the worse for the wear, but tinged with the bittersweetness of ‘what-could-have-been.’ In other words, a lot like real life… but with a soundtrack.

In an earlier post I alluded to rumbling with a Roomba. Now I shall elaborate on the tale.

A friend bought a Roomba before Christmas with the intention of giving it to her brother as a gift. However, she bought the Roomba off ebay and didn’t really read the description in which the seller mentioned the thing had never worked quite right. So the Roomba was received and seemed somewhat functional, but he has battery charging issues that are not related to the battery.

That fiasco eventually resulted in the purchasing of a new Roomba for the brother, a new Roomba for my friend (her mother took pity on her after the hours spent trying to make the first Roomba work correctly), and my inheriting the dysfunctional Roomba.

So my experience of a functioning Roomba is rather limited. They seem pretty awesome, but they are obviously a bit temperamental. The Roomba I’m working on now is currently in pieces while I try to replace some of the components of his charger circuit. This involves me 1) learning how to solder, 2) learning how to desolder, and 3) learning how to do both without frying the heck out of the other components on the board. Fortunately, I can always get a replacement board online when I do happen to fry the other components. But until then, it’s going to be a little while until I can tell you how I feel about the little buggers.

Perhaps it is wrong to take such great pleasure in despair. And yet, I cannot help myself.

I’m sure I could make money selling this.

Yes, they’re expensive, but they’re also adorable!