Dream #20 - Batman's Travel Blues

I was on a mission as The Batman to hunt down an imposter Lily (thievius beagaleus). I had her cornered in a bedroom under a bed and simply snuck out and closed the door.

Up on the rusty red beams of a tower under construction I struggled with a villain. As he fell from the heights I managed to slip a pair of handcuffs on him and to a steel ladder. I turned to fly away but noticed from the corner of my eye that he was climbing, somehow having slipped the cuffs. I put another pair on him and he seemed to slip from them even as I was still attaching them. I noticed the mangled paperclip in his teeth and managed to pry it from him while attaching yet another set of handcuffs. He hung suspended by his wrist from the ladder over the twinkling lights of the city below waiting for the police to pick him up.

I lay in a massive bed with white and gold linens. The wall across from me held a giant cabinet of dark oak. The wall to my left was a large window with gold drapes. The room smelled a little musty like old money. It was my last night in London; my flight left in the morning and I'd splurged with the last of my paper. I felt a sense of loss and loneliness but a great love, too.

I hopped into the crowded train. I squeezed in behind the driver (who had a booth like on a bus) and beside another tall man. I was stuck in beside a woman who already had her seat back and legs out and who complained of not enough room. "I'm move," I said politely.

"Next train to Montauk. The 8 o'clock," called the driver. (Why the hell was I heading to Montauk?)

I slipped through the corridor of the train. Rather than usual seats it had benches along either side and little in the way of windows. The interior was cream and beige with a red stripe running along the overhead storage compartments. Flashes of green hillsides and small trees came through the rare windows. I looked for a seat, avoiding old ladies and the creepies.

Untruth is Advertising - Are You Insure?

Belairdirect is running a radio ad something to the effect of "Call Belairdirect today and in just ten minutes we could save you $500. That's like saving $50 a minute!"

WHOA. Hold up there, cowboy. Let's run some numbers here. Calling you could (there's no guarantee) save you up to $500 per annum. It's not one lump sum. So, at 525960 minutes per annum (average over four years), that's just under one tenth of a cent a minute. A far cry from $50. Dealing in insurance, I hope you deal with numbers better than that.

Review - Prometheus

Ultimately the promises of "Prometheus" are as empty as any other religions' and leave you gaping into the cruel maw of existence wishing for a warm bosom on which to lay your head and while awhile the hours until the end of days. Seriously, there's, like, nothing here. Nothing. Big crashy spaceship. Ooh. If that's what passes for entertainment these days... I don't even know how to finish that. The Hollywood gods should have kept their fire to themselves. This is just a really expensive low budget film with no inspiration, direction or real questions to ask. Avoid this. Go watch "The LEGO Movie." 1/5.

Dream #19 - Homes of the Rich and Famous

We piled into the black sedan on our way to pick up the mob boss. It was a luxurious car, leather seats and walnut interior. We followed the GPS along a series of canals. The screen resembled an eight-bit video game, a blue line filling up the black spaces between the red as we rolled along.

 

We pulled into the gravel driveway through the iron gates and strode into the house. There was a large dark stained living room with high gabled ceilings and a few blue and white striped couches grouped together in the centre. A handful of people sat on the couches clustered around a tray of cheese and crackers and glasses of wine. One woman in a pale blue dress to match the couches took a step forward.

 

"He told you he would meet you," she said sternly. Her voice hinted at an English accent nearly lost after years of colonial life.

 

"He didn't."

 

"Well at all events he's not here."

 

"We'll see for ourselves if you don't mind. Or we'll wait here."

 

We began to spread out, searching the house for our target. My eyes roamed down a hallway at the end of which, through a doorway, was a large marble fireplace intricately carved and housing a blazing fire set on an angle. The mantle was topped with an assortment of pewter steins. I wandered toward the coziness of it. Through the doorway the room opened up into a large but quaint kitchen. On the left past the fireplace was a slightly crescent shaped dining table with ten chairs gathered around and a bowl of fruit in the middle. To the right was an island of cupboards with a modern stove. The wall was a series of floor length windows rising up to meet the ceiling. The white marble wall had some kind of masthead, golden and resembling a stuffed lion. It seemed a little out of place, tacky even, compared to the stylish mix of sleek modern lines and rough hewn woods.

 

A few steps up led me to the back door, a blue wooden affair of that rough hewn look with a small square window set in it. The door was slightly ajar and I heard a lilting voice. I could imagine the woman would be as pretty as her voice. "A patio just for drinking beer. Must be an Italian thing," she said.

 

I poked my head around the door. "I think the Germans are the only ones to invent the beer patio," I said. She smiled. For some reason instead of focusing on her I focused on the patio. Stone with a glass and black iron railing, a small table with two folding chairs lined up against it.

 

The others of my party came filing out the door. They wormed through the patio and down the stairs at the other end. A steep asphalt path led through a  neatly trimmed hedge. A shallow moat followed the hedge and ran across the path. That looks like a recipe for disaster, I thought.

 

Even as I said it, one of my companions made his way across the path, slipped on the water and went sliding down through the bushes into the street.

 

"Road rash on your ass!" I called.