July 28, 2001, 5:00am

Old women were standing on a porch next to Moe from The Simpsons. One of them cut a tomato and he said, "Can you cut an onion?"

She says yes.

He says, "I can cut something else. Can you cut loose?"

She says yes.

A man with no feet walks by the porch celebrating "Footloose Day."

June 22, 2000, 6:12am

I had to go to NJ for a meeting of some sort. I got up the next day to get back to college to take a test (and study a lot before). I left very early but traffic got caught up in NJ. I came home to do breakfast with the family since I had given myself enough time. Unfortunately, by the time I go out of there (Dad was going to drive me at this point?), it was too late. I had missed my test. I yelled at Stacey because Farrah Fawcett made me late (her name came up serveral times).

There was also some subplot about gettinga a letter from Kathy Ireland. She included a weird picture of me with two people holding Kathy Ireland dolls and a movie of the dolls with some monster dolls.

Salted Eggs

Those two brothers dropped in a restaurant to have dinner. The waiter served them a meal in which there was a plate of salted eggs. The younger brother asked the elder ones:

"Why are these eggs salty, brother?"

The elder brother answered:

"Don't ask such a stupid question for others will laugh at you! You don't know even salted eggs, do you?"

The younger brother asked again:

"But where do they come from?"

The elder brother showed his wide knowledge:

"How stupid you are! You don't even know salted eggs! Salted ducks lay salted eggs! Do you know such a simple thing now?"

Could there be any worse torture? I tell you, my stress level was through the roof when it was announced in gym class that we wouldn't be playing floor hockey or running the 50-yard dash, but that we had to team up with a partner for square dancing.

November 30, 2000, 5:34am

I was riding in a car in New York City and saw a man with a sandwich board that said "Parking in *DOWN ARROW*" (rear) and the other side had a blinking arrow pointing left.

Another part of the dream had me on a subway, realizing I had lost my bag on the "brown line" [probably referring to my recently lost digital camera].

Then I was at a Half Pint/Rastafarian convention where two deceased reggae artists (Pan Head and Ras Sam Brown) were performing.

At some point in the dream the phrase "ecclesiastic mistake" was uttered.

September 19, 2000

[I've posted this dream before, but it's worth posting again due to its bizarre nature.]

I dreamt about a software product that my company offers for download, except that in my dream it wasn't software, it was an intraveinous contraption hooked up through a large tube running into the drain of a sink, connected with a Reach toothbrush. It pumped a soaplike substance into my arm.

[I woke up from the dream with the freaky illusion of bubbling soap in my blood.]

A Poem On a Toad

Those three poets thought that their talent of poetry was excellent and often complained to one another that they would die young for longevity and talent didn't go together.

One day, they went sightseeing with one servent to a pagoda. After taking some drinks, they wanted to compose a poem but didn't know how to begin. Suddenly, they saw a toad jump out from somewhere. One of them at once read out the first line of the poem:

"The toad jumps out."

The second poet went on:

"The toad jumps in."

The third poet also read:

"The toad sits there."

The little servent asked them permission to make the last line:

"The toad jumps away."

And then the three poets all cried noisily for they were afraid that Heaven would be envious with their talent and would not let them live any longer. They hurriedly told the servant to go buy them three coffins for precaution. They also told the servant to buy one more for himself because his talent of poetry was excelent [sic], too.

At the moment, the old monk in the pagoda went out, gave some money to the servant and said:

"Please buy me one coffin, little boy!"

The three poets were very surprised but the monk just then explained:

"It's just because I have taken a vow that if I meet anyone who is worse than I in poetry, I'll die. Now it has happened so I can't live any longer!"

September 9, 2000

I was being chased. I was running quite fast through Shawnee Country (the development I grew up in) when I saw that WWF wrestler Kurt Angle was chasing after me in his car. I did some fancy running and got back to my house before he could catch me.

July 15, 2000

I went back to ProCuts in Falls Church for a haircut and had a new guy [who looked a lot like a different guy I had had at the local barber shop during my last visit]. Details are sketchy, but I had him give me the usual "nice, short trim" and for some reason asked for a "hot shave." I was nervous because he moved so swiftly with the razor. He did a good job.

I went to pay and it was $9 + $90 for back money owed, or something stupid like that.

After I was outside, I realized he barely trimmed my top and I went back in to see if he'd be willing to redo it. If I remember correctly, he was a bit annoyed. I don't believe I left him a tip initially (I forgot), so maybe that's why he was grouchy.

[I shaved the next day, in real life. :)]

January 6, 2001

On the day before our wedding -- at the rehearsal (with a lot of people) in a strange church that had a couple of altars... I realized I hadn't gotten a tux yet (even my best man had). Also there was a bathroom -- whether it was one of those super-huge ones that are usually in my dreams, I don't remember.

I told Huyen about the tux and she didn't really flip about it. I almost had the impression that it would be relatively easy to get a tux the night before the wedding!

I woke up a bit several times and each time and told myself, "Relax -- the wedding isn't tomorrow," but would then fall back into the same dream.

March 26, 2001, 6:30am

I was in the kitchen and heard a racoon outside the basement door, so I went downstairs to scare it away. On my way down, I noticed Huyen had moved the washer and dryer elsewhere.

I got to the sliding glass door and was going to try and scare the racoon off [like I've done with cats] only to realize it was inside! I turned and ran and it chased me up the stairs, nearly getting me before I slammed the door.

March 12, 2001

I was going to Aunt Stef's funeral. My parents and I went into to the viewing room. The casket was in the center of the room. We went to the corner, though, and talked with Grandpop (he had big glasses on) and Aunt Stef (!)... I was kind of vague as to why Aunt Stef was alive at her own funeral. Was this something she had planned? Or was I mistaken and this was someone else's funeral? I never actually saw who was in the casket...

It was nice to see my Grandfather and my Aunt Stef again, even if it was only in a dream.

When I was a freshman or sophomore in high school, I had taken a walk to the boardwalk during one my family's many visits to the shore. At an Atlantic Book Store, I came across a heavily-discounted book-on-tape called Robot City. I listened to it and fell in love with it immediately. Sure, I was never really heavily into sci-fi, but this story based on Asimov's robots was enthralling.

The tape was only for the first book in the series. It took me a while to ever find a copy of the book, but once I did (several years later), I began my new quest to collect the remaining five books in the series.

During college, I did just that. And then I found out that there were another six books in an adjoining series (Robots and Aliens), which I proceeded to collect. I didn't complete my collection until a year or two ago, almost a decade after I bought the audio tape edition of the first book. The series has become one of my favorites and has led me to a new quest: to find all the entires in the Robots in Time series by William F. Wu, who wrote one of the early Robot City books.

December 20, 2000, 10:00am

[This is a very pieced together recollection of a dream... I had a dozen phrases written down that I had to work with.]

I was driving back to Shawnee (where I went to high school) for my car. In the parking lot were a group of sheep and a pair of cult members going to get married.

At some point, I was in "homeroom," which was really in the 2nd grade hallway of Milton H. Allen (my elementary school). A girl from my elementary school was there at some point. Huyen's mom was also there as a teacher's aide. She was trying to tell the kids something (these kids were all elementary age though I was high school age... not sure what age the girl from my class was, though). They laughed because they couldn't understand her and thought she was speaking a foreign language (odd, because Huyen's mom speaks English fluently and very well). I was pissed at the kids for acting that way.

Later, I was back out in the parking lot driving away. Huyen was in the car -- at some point, a guy was chasing us, pounding on my window. I had trouble movine, though, because my seat was pushed way far back and I had a hard time reaching the pedals. I was only able to accelerate in short bursts. This got me annoyed, which, in turn, got Huyen frustrated.

[According to the other notes on the top of the page, I had also called the police at some point, something about a "retarded kid," and Christmas shopping for lights.]

To paraphrase "Stone Cold" Steve Austin: "Oh hell no!"

February 10, 2001

I tried to shoot a woman, but my gun's bullets were more like pellets and fell to the floor rather than shooting. Eventually, I realized I had to pull the hammer back on the pistol and fired a shot a this woman's head, point blank into her temple.

Yikes.

March 10, 2001

I went to this old west/ghost town-type location for a party that Stacey was having for Jules. It was in a large building with very high ceilings, like a library -- a ton of books stretched from floor to ceiling, in addition to stacks on the floor. At one point, I was sitting in a comfy reading chair and a dog kept bothering me.

At the end, as Huyen and I were trying to leave town, a group of men (on train tracks) were trying to stop us. I ended up stabbing one of them multiple times in the ribs and chest.

This dream had a very cool atmosphere to it... inside was very fancy and library-like atmosphere, while the outside could best be described as "ominous dusk."

They're still charging way too much for domains and their site is only slightly more navigable, but they now offer web-based customer service and seem to be getting their act together as far as the registration process.

I have three different methods of writing my dreams. The first is to write the full dream when I actually wake up from it. Usually, I'm way too tired to try and do this. So, sometimes I'll scribble some keywords at the top of the page and reconstruct the dream in the morning. The third way is to speak it into a small recorder I keep by my bed.

One night in late January of this year, I opted to write down a phrase at the top of the page that I was sure would spark a memory of the dream. But it didn't... itstead it just made me wonder how sick of an individual I am. The phrase?

Humping sheep

A Teacher and an Enchanter

That widow once sent for an enchanter to do the praying ceremony for her dead husband and her children's teacher to attend the feast after the ceremony.

Unfortunately, the enchanter was a stupid one. He was afraid that the teacher would find his wrong reading in the praying so he dragged the preparation so long that only when it was already dark could he begin the ceremony. That's why the food was all stale.

Naturally, in a praying book, the name of the believer was not written yet and instead of it, the word "someone" was written there. In Chinese, the word looked like a triangle. The enchanter didn't know how to read the word. An idea of association appeared in his mind so he read: "Believer Vulva." Nobody but the teacher knew his wrong reading for the people there didn't know Chinese. But the teacher kept silent.

After the ceremony and the feast, it was nearly midnight so the teacher and the enchanter had to spend the night at the widow's. The widow and her children slept in their bedroom and let the two men sleep in the living room. Because of the stale food, that night, the teacher had an attack of colic and wanted to go to stool but he couldn't go out for the door was tightly locked and there was a savage dog outside. He thought: "I can't shit in their house for I'll be ashamed. It's better to shit on the enchanter's buttocks." Thinking so, he fumbled for that man's buttocks and shitted there. Unluckily, in a hurry, he toucher that man's mouth and thought it's his anus. That's why, his shit spilled all over the enchanter's face. The enchanter woke up and cursed loudly:

"Hell with him who has shitted into my mouth!"

The teacher thought he couldn't either refute or keep silent. So he said without thinking:

"It's I who've done it!"

"Why did you dare to shit into my mouth?" asked the enchanter.

"Because," the teacher said, "You tread the name of the believer in the wrong way. You are too stupid so I had to shit into your mouth to make you give you your stupidity!"

I'm planning a run at 6:30 in the morning. I'm saying it here so I will actually do it.

Dream entry #5:

May 20, 2000, 6:00am

I was showing Stacey (my sister) an old web page we made for Buttons (the cat we had until I was in 7th grade) in 1992 (?!). It had the word "meow" on it and was hosted, apparently, on my dad's school's server, which had a really long URL with the word "garage" in it. I had forgotten this page even existed. I scrolled down and there were really funny pictures of Stacey with short, curly hair (a la "Felicity") and a super-thin neck. I laughed, but she wasn't amused. It doesn't look anything like you," I said, in an attempt to not sound like a mean sibling.

December 18, 2000, 4:00am

Early in the dream I was walking around a video arcade/bar with Huyen... it was pretty sleazy. Saw one video game called "Virtual Bedroom" that actually had a bed and some virtual reality people standing and watching.

We saw another game -- a shoot 'em up type (we had seen one earlier that we played against each other). Huyen wanted to play. She did, versus another guy. She started by shooting her own ship by accident ("It's better if you don't shoot your own ship, buddy," I said). Apparently, this started a competitiohn that Huyen kept track of in a notebook.

The competition moved to an open store with no owner around... kind of like a large mattress store, but with videos and video games. Huyen and this other guy started this bizarre game that had really large letters on a wall. They had to press matching parts of a large keypad. Huyen lost (I helped her at one point) but challenged him to another match... in a friendly way, though. I went to the back and hung out, waiting for Huyen to finish her game.

At this point, Huyen was replaced by Bill S. [a friend from my childhood that I haven't seen in over a decade]. Bill and this guy apparently had an argument (Bill was doing most of the yelling) after Bill lost several more games to this guy (because, remember, he used to be Huyen). Bill stormed out and the guy yelled at me, "Well, you saw who won fair and square... he even admitted it!"

I told the man, "I don't want to get in the middle of it."

Bill was now replaced by a sleazy late-80s big-hair girl who had stormed around the store with a kid. She had knocked over some videos, including my "Sisters of Rap" video, which I was selling at the store. I picked three videos back up and put them in place on the free-standing shelf. Another guy started to do the same thing, but the girl yelled at him, "Don't bother! That's what he cops are for! They'll clean it up."

I went outside and the girl complained to another guy (the one from the previous paragraph?). "Come on! Let's go! I left in 1989 for you!" when I knew she was lying because I forced her to leave and it was 1991 (I realize this makes no sense).

This scene ended talking about another guy and how he made his money sleeping with women. The guy was across the street (we were in a city-like area) sitting outside a car repair shop. It was AC Slater (from Saved by the Bell)! He opened the garage door with an automatic opener and said, "See this beauty?" -- it was a cleanly waxed lowrider-type of car. "I cleaned this up and payed for it with money I worked for -- no hoes!"

July 29, 2000, 4:40am

I was at a Natural Law Party convention or something similar where John Hagelin (presidential candidate) was speaking. As he started talking, everyone noticed that their pants were soaked with water -- everyone laughed about it, though. John talked about his presidential campaign a bit, discussing about washing your fruit before eating. Then he took members of Hanson and threw them into a pool. Everyone laughed.

August 6, 2000, 3:30am

I woke up in the middle of the night and looked out the window and saw people dismantling Huyen's car. I ran downstairs to confront them and somehow, all but one got in the car and drove away. I started chasing the last guy around in circles. Then we both talked each other, like snakes about to strike. He did, in a wussy way, and tried to kick me, but failed. I called to Huyen to call the cops. I was surprised this thug-type guy was intimidated by my bravado. The air was extremely still -- like the rest of the world was paused. [According to other scribbled notes on the page, it was also raining.]