Evil Spirits in Stanford

This dream occurs on the same night as "deep-throating locker room girl" but much later.

I am biking with my family. The bikes have a motor with an adjustable speed, so the user can choose to use the motor, pedal with the feet, or both. I pass a building and hear a couple of little 8-year-olds exclaiming in awe, "Oh, look, Stanford!"

We approach the edge of a steep cliff. Below where we stand, there are buildings with roofs of varying height that just might allow for safe passage to the floor via ninja-jumping. Alternatively, we could simply enter a building at our level to our left, take the elevator downwards, and exit the building at the ground floor.

Remembering that there are "evil spirits" in this aforementioned building, I lift my heavy motor bike and consider ninja-jumping all the way down. Then I realize it's not feasible while holding a heavy bike, so I relent and enter the building.

Inside, we say hi to the "children" of the manager of this Stanford building. One of them looks like a little-kid version of my friend Kristen. They are baking deserts for the Amador Valley Marching Band. One of the deserts is a brownie with ice cream on top, and looks very yummy.

I feel the approach of the evil spirits. Come to think of it, this entire dream I've been feeling the approach of the evil spirits. Maybe even since the "deep-throat girl" scene. But now, they have finally caught up to me in this unholy Stanford building, which is their home.

A colorful man wearing a colorful exotic oriental hat strolls very slowly towards me from the adjacent room. He is one of them, I realize. "He's here, he's here!" I wail to no one in particular. Everyone in the room thinks I'm crazy, because only I can see the spirit. I try to explain that I am about to be killed, but that only confuses people further.

I quickly search for a weapon that might help me defeat the evil spirits. I quickly find one of these popsicle holders lying around (without the popsicle, so that the tip facing outwards is a popsicle stick) and attempt to slit the colorful man's throat with it.

It works. His eyes bulge. He gags, "We are trying to protect you!"

The actual evil spirit bursts from the adjacent room and runs towards me. It is skinny, has four legs, and is much more evil-looking. It looks somewhat like my friend Poom. As the evil spirit runs towards me, I attempt to slash it with my popsicle stick. It passes right through the monster. I yell to the Kristen kid in dismay, "My weapon works on my allies but passes right through the evil spirit!" The kid is bewildered by my apparent insanity, because she cannot see the spirits.

Fortunately, the monster is intercepted by another benevolent protector spirit, the son of the colorful man. At this point, name labels appear above the spirits' heads, much like in a computer game. I learn that the colorful man's actual name is "Innkeeper," and he has been keeping peace and order within this Stanford Inn for years, defending against every evil spirit that happened to wander here. The boy is the "son of the Innkeeper."

The boy and the monster are engaged in battle. He yells for assistance, but the Innkeeper is still recovering from a slit neck, due to my folly. Again, I try to slash the evil spirit with my popsicle stick while he is distracted by the boy. Again, the popsicle stick passes right through the monster. I become hysterical and beg to the normal humans around me to realize that I am about to die, but they have no idea what is going on.

Finally, the monster has killed both the Innkeeper and his son. The monster now turns towards me and pinches a tendon on my right shoulder. I am dying, but I also acknowledge the chance that this might be a dream and I might not die.

I feel my heart slow down dramatically.

I wake up.


Inspiration for the creature must have come from House of the Dead, the arcade game

The deep-throating locker room girl (non-sexual)

I enter a locker room, in search of my regular clothes (I am wearing work-out clothes). I realize that I cannot remember which locker I put my clothes in, or even the whereabouts of the locker, because I always use a different locker every time.

In one section of the locker room, there is an aisle of pens, pencils, paper, and other such school necessities on sale. It seems that the locker room is slowly being transformed into a store. The only explanation is that the school year is almost over; they are cleaning out the lockers, replacing lockers with school supplies, and temporarily using the building as a student store.

I ask a nearby girl, "Have they cleaned out the lockers already? Can I still get my clothes back?"

She responds, "Yes, they've cleaned out the lockers, but you can still get your items back from the box in that room."

She leads me to the "box," which is actually a girl kneeling on the floor. She demonstrates how to use the box by sticking her hand deep inside the girl's throat and retrieving an apple from the girl's stomach. Deep-throat girl tells me that she has a gift for identifying people based solely on the contour of their arm, as they reach into her esophagus. Her super-human throat sensors can always correctly identify the individual and allow access to only the items that belong to that individual. This is a neat and secure way to allow everyone to retrieve the items that they left behind in the locker room, as opposed to simply throwing it all away.

Green Dot Scam

Winning the $100 prize at the talent show has given me the opportunity to add one more thing to the long list of things that I hate: The Green Dot Visa Prepaid Card. I don't even have the card yet, because I am supposed to "activate" it before they mail me my debit card (in 7-10 business days).

The instructions state that I can activate online OR by calling 1-866-443-6227. However, after completing the long, tedious activation process online (they even made me give me social security number!), the website informed me that I have to call 1-866-443-6227 to "complete" my activation. So I called this number and the automated voice-recognition computer answered me and told me my name was "Ooh!" even though I said my last name is L-O-H. I hung up when I realized that it was just asking me the same exact questions as the online activation, forcing me to do the entire process all over again.

So if the instructions said activate online OR by phone, why did the website want me to call the phone number even after I finished online activation? Why does the process of claiming my money take longer than it's worth? I am beginning to think that this is all a big scam. I have temporarily given up on redeeming my troublesome $100 prize.

As expected, google yielded some satisfying results of others who hate Green Dot:
http://www.lockergnome.com/tuxedojericho/2007/11/04/greendot-more-like-scamdot/
http://www.howardforums.com/archive/topic/1048788-1.html

On a lighter note, the shirt that I won, which says "Most Talented Berkelean in Unit 1," is quite awesome.



Edit: I finally received the card. But today I found out that someone had secretly signed me up for "premiere membership." I have not used the card at all but my balance is now down to $70.10, from the original 100 dollars. This "premiere membership" is nothing that any sane person would ever purchase, so obviously the workers there are instructed to sign every customer up for it, even though I decidedly refused EVERY special offer.

Consider this: Someone put 100 dollars onto a card as a gift for me, for winning the talent show. Now, only 70 dollars remain. 30 dollars have already been STOLEN by the company.

I believe that the company is made of highly sophisticated scammers. It offers services identical to most debit cards, but they slowly steal your money with secret fees. I do not believe they are affiliated with VISA, although they stamp their cards with the VISA logo. It is impossible to sue them because they are a rogue company with no known location (only a P.O. box).

I will be contacting customer service soon and hopefully resolve this problem. I doubt it will work, though, since their primary objective is probably to steal social security numbers and money.