Unhinge back of head (very short)

I am sitting with some bros eating some food.

I notice out of the corner of my eye one of my friends opening up the back of his head with his hands. His head is hinged at the front and can open from the back.

He systematically stuffs some spaghetti noodles into his head.

He closes his head.

Maggots, posessed people, etc.

changing lightbulb to 65 watts instead of 75 watts.

halogen lamp began to sizzle so i turn it off and i look up and there are WORMS

then suddenly MAGGOTS IN MY HAIR and when i brush them they come out ahhh and i hear FLIES IN MY EAR!

SO I GO TAKE SHOWER TO WASH THEM OFF IT SO SCARY

then i am at gbc with some friends except it is like at crossroads. the lady swipe i have no mealpoints so i say use debit

i have to katch up to my friends, simmern is there and kathleen. simmern throws a basketball at kathleen who fails to catch so i catch, i drible and it's hard to dribble especially with cars on the left side on street, i afraid basketball will roll to them.

we pass a couple of cop cars and one undercover cop car and now instead of walking with friends i am in car with family.

we are suspicious of cops might break into gang war but we keep going to our destination thing at bottom of hill.

we get out of car, dad goes somewhere, sister goes into house.

gang arrives, weeoo police siren, a fight break out, so we yell for christine to come out of house and she come. we all get into car to pick up dad i want to get into driver seat b/c more control, bu whatever i in back.

mom drive around real slow and weird. i see dad so we uturn to get him. he is like at concentration camp working and not allowed to leave. but we call him over because we are going to rescue him. but he only reluctantly comes over. we beckon him in and mom and him give a sort of "sad smile" almost as if they know the plan will not work and we are all screwed.

mom drives surprisingly slowly as if under control, posessed, by some entity, to try to make us fail. finally i try to help ou by unbuckling my seatbelt and i want to floor the gas pedal with my HAND but as i reach over CHRISTINE restrains me and starts to tickle me and do weird-ass motions with herself. i'm like wh are you restraining me we have to escape and she's like "hehe because i'm a weird girl hehehehehe" nd i'm like oh no my sister si under the influence of the posession entity demon thing too. and then finally big brother is taking over my mind and i feel the laugh coming on "huh huh huh huh huh" as a groan escapes from me in real life.

Affection-Generating Dream with Parallel Universes

The following chronicles an "affection generating dream" that is common in high school and less common in college. It was my brain trying to get me to have feelings for this girl via my subconscious. It felt wonderful (at least the very first part).

For privacy purposes the name of the girl in this dream has been changed to "Bla."

tl;dr version (raw post-dream writing):

Playing piano duet with crush Bla fast escalation I half-kiss her cheek easy, she has to leave and i'm like doh she no like, but then she's like "ur not coming?" so I go w/ her to elevator. then she turn into guy along with girl that Jeff also likes and both try to drug us, w/ smarties. I become sad that Bla is actually a dude. 6'2" white guy. But nothing is certain and universe keep shifting I call her later and she denies ever having been a white guy, also later on every time I call her it's like someone else answers, her identity changes, almost like shifting parallel universes like one guy all like "well she does live in my residence please hold"

as I sobering up Liz finds blue jacket from wardrobe (at first she only found stupid mascot costumes) "Liz don't u have anything less conspicuous" I comment on shifting universes and Liz momentarily becomes a white woman I don't know. Back home, writing my dream, stale potato chips, surprisingly accurate w/ my facts.

Long version: Instead of posting a long-ass story I will just elaborate on the ambiguous sections:

Throughout the dream the parallel universes keep shifting in and out of phase, sometimes overlapping with each other. That's why every time I called Bla I got a different response: In some universes she is in love with me, whereas in others she does not even know who I am. In some universes she doesn't live at that phone number's location, whereas in others she lives in a coop and another man answers the phone and tell me to hold.

In one universe, Bla is actually a tall white guy, hanging out with Jeff's crush (who also turned into a tall white guy, incidentally). Both try to drug Jeff and me with drugs that taste like smarties.

Later in the dream I feel cold so I need a jacket from Liz. Liz is a rich woman friend with an extremely large wardrobe. Her closet is the size of my room. Nonetheless she can't find a suitable jacket for me; all she has are mascot costumes, like the Cal bear or the weird red pepper thing. One of her costumes is an orange giraffe. I say, "Liz, don't you have anything less conspicuous?" I finally go home with a blue windbreaker.

Near the end of the dream, I thought I had already woken up. I was writing down the details of my dream to remember them. Surprisingly, none of these details were wrong. I must have been in stage 1 and retained all of my cognitive abilities. I finally woke up for real. Writing down my dream details in my dream definitely helped transition the memories from dream-state to waking-state. I could actually visually remember some words I wrote down near the end of the dream, and verify that they indeed happened earlier in the dream.

Cancerous Salmon Sashimi

Raw text (tldr version):

Pop out flowers salmon poison strip accidental in mouth back in time correct, but still aftertaste. Professor says imposs to correct because of Heisenberg/Schrodinger riddle/questions involving schrodinger cat. students say it will correct but professor is right. another girl dies I start throwing up, sort of feel it is dream but not sure

With details ("I like reading Max's dreams" version):

At an expensive restaurant, I am served an exquisite salmon sashimi dish. When I open the lid, a pop-out book mechanism causes some small flowers to pop out. Beneath the flowers lies the prized fish. The cook explains that each strip of sashimi is covered with a strip of poison; as long as you remove the strip and do not put the strip in your mouth, the food is completely safe.

Well lo and behold somehow I find myself chewing on this poisonous strip that I had just removed from my fish. "How did that get in my mouth?" I wonder. Incidentally, a generic girl beside me had suffered a similar fate; she too accidentally put the poison strip in her mouth. Anyway, it is too late. I am going to die from the cancer that this poison gives me. Ah, but maybe I can go back in time to remedy the problem by NOT eating the poisonous strip.

I ask my quantum physics professor (not a real person in real life): "If I go back in time and avoid eating the poison, will that fix everything?" The professor answers in the negative. I am greatly confused by this, since common sense would say that going back in time and avoiding the poison WOULD fix the problem. I ask some of the professor's students this very same question and they answer, "Yes, of course it would work." So I go back to the professor and he proceeds to explain exactly why it wouldn't work. It is a very complex explanation involving several case studies of experiments by Heisenberg and Schrodinger's cat. One such research article was titled something like "Heisenberg, Schrodinger, and a cat." The results of these experiments imply that going back in time to change something will have no effect on the resulting state of the universe; despite how hard you try, even if you blow up a building, in 5 minutes everything will have returned to normal. It is all very confusing to me but gradually I begin to be convinced that the professor is correct, even though I do not understand the proof at all.

So I try it. I go back in time. I carefully avoid eating the poison. I even avoid eating the fish entirely. Yet, just as the professor had predicted, 5 minutes later I can feel that all-too-familiar bitter aftertaste of the cancerous poison in my mouth, despite that I had not ingested anything! I realize that the quantum physics professor knew what he was talking about, and there is no way to remedy my situation.

A few days later I learn that the girl who also ate the poison strip had died. Her exposure was far more severe, because she chewed on it longer than I did whereas I spit it out almost immediately, so she died first. Nonetheless, I knew my end would come eventually. Already, I was feeling sick. Moments later I threw up. Some generic people beside me (only my sister is recognizable) tried to comfort me. I tasted the vomit carefully, trying to decide whether or not all of this was a dream. The feeling of vomiting and the taste/texture of vomit both felt quite real. I felt a bit dreamy but that could have been explained by an altered state of mind brought about by the sickness. I could not make a decision on whether or not I was dreaming, until I woke up.

In Which I Kill Wall-E

We are in sweet tomatoes when the fire alarm goes off. We all evacuate the building and go towards our car. 4 people are following us and trying to make conversation about the alarm. We soon realize they are only trying to mug us; they set up the alarm to evacuate the people from the restaurant to prevent any witnesses from seeing them through the window.

So as this gang is trying to mug us, the 3 other family members get in the car. A big black dude puts me in a leg bar but I break free and punch his head into concrete, because I am just that awesome. As my dad starts driving the van forward, the other three muggers chase me. One grabs me by the waist just as I am swinging onto the roof of the van. The mugger turns into a big (human-sized) evil version of Wall-e. I lean forward and throw the wall-e forwards such that he lands on the ground in front of the van.

My dad does not run him over and keeps driving. That was a mistake. Wall-e gets back up and fires two precision laser shots, disabling our back tires. Now the car is inching forward only very slowly and wall-e is about to get us. I grab a long pole and start banging wall-e's head from side to side until his head comes off. Now he is blind. For good measure I walk him and pull his arms out of their sockets and then his legs. Then I crush his torso. Now he is just pieces of scrap metal.

I wake up very sad that the plot had to end this way. Wall-e used to be a very cute robot and only recently turned evil. I talk to my sister about my dream. "What an ingenious plot device by the director of Wall-e," I tell her, "to have the AUDIENCE kill wall-e at the end! That makes it extra sad since wall-e used to be so cute."

Then after a moment I realize that my dream wasn't the same as the actual plot in the movie. So I say, "Wow, I'm going to write down my dream because my plot is way more dramatic/intense than the movie plot."

Then I wake up for real.

Mince Meat

We are on a train. The train stops. The station "doors" open.

The station doors are REALLY confusing. So confusing that Johnny Hwang is all like "WHATHAFACK?!" They are a maze. They open, and I step through one set of doors, but I'm not really sure if I'm in the station yet, because there's a maze of fences made from blue metallic mesh. I step through yet another set of doors and it seems I just got closer to the train again!

"The doors are closing. Please stand clear of the doors."

Well I am clear of the doors but DAMN these metallic mesh fences are CLOSING ON ME. AHHH I'm going to be crushed alive! "WHATHAFACK" says Johnny again. We are shortly thereafter crushed alive.

I feel... restrained... as if in hibernation or suspended animation, but alive. Why am I still alive, even unhurt? Ah, therein lies the GENIUS of this crushing system. You see, it left our BLOOD VESSELS intact. Yes, and that's all we need to survive. Our blood vessels. It somehow circumvented all of our vital organs and is now encasing all of our blood vessels in metallic material, with microscopic precision. Don't ask me how it was able to trap our blood vessels in a fine mesh without even breaking our skin/muscle/bones/brain/heart; this is dream logic. "How am I going to get out of this trap?" I think to myself. "Ah, requires too much brain power to think of some creative plot device... would rather wake up," responds my brain.

Solution: In retrospect, we could have simply waited for the next train to arrive. The doors and fences would then have opened, thereby freeing our blood vessels. Then we could have used that precious time to try to get free of the station before the doors closed again.

Do You Feel Sorry For Pedophiles and/or Animal-philes? A Scandalous Survey.

I just saw Doubt (2008).

Pedophiles and animalphiles are distinct from other people of uncommon sexual desire (such as LGBT community) because many argue that the objects of their desire have no ability to consent. They are shunned by society even in comparison to LGBT's, but for what reasons?

1. Are animals capable of consent? I would think that if an animal did not give any signs of resistance and orgasmed then it would qualify as consent, no? Who are we to say that they "can't think for themselves and therefore it is bad for them"?

2. Are children capable of consent? Children are humans aka pretty damn smart and would probably give resistance if they did not like something. Anyway puberty hits as early as 9. Some say children just don't know any better or don't know what they want or are confused, but I am averse to that sort of PC fluff-talk and would like evidence to support it.

Whether or not animals or children are capable of consent, I feel sorry for all those weird people. They did not ASK to be born with such strange sexual desires. The only reason these people are branded as disgusting creepers who deserve no sympathy, is that society is full of myopic band-wagoners who are too pea-brained to place themselves in someone else's shoes.

3. Do you feel sorry for pedophiles and/or animal-philes? Why or why not?

stand up against anti-racist propaganda

-At least two of my friends have reported that an ethnic studies class they took spread anti-white ideas. For example, white men only date Asian women because they are exotic.

-Once I told an indian dude in judo that black people are usually born with a greater proportion of fast-twitch muscles, suitable for explosive movements like sprinting and jumping. You know what he said? "That's racist!" People these days. I wonder what he would have said if I told him that Asian people are shorter than white people.

-Ethnic studies classes always say this: "Race is cultural, not biological. Everything is a cultural construct, and there are no physical differences." WTF? They are basically denying that white people are taller than asian people, hiding their head in the sand and spreading their gospel that every race is genetically identical.

-Ethnic studies classes always emphasize that every race has the same intelligence and ability. That is almost certainly a lie. We do not have enough knowledge to conclude whether or not all races have the same innate genetic intelligence. Given all genetic differences between races of the world, it doesn't even matter if our DNA is 99.99% the same: Obviously this 0.01% can make a huge difference in facial attributes and bone density, so why can't it affect other things such as learning potential? Here's an analogy: Bubba and Bubbette have two children who are not twins. One is orange and one is blue (note my careful choice of colors). The orange one gets and education and the blue one doesn't. In 1950 America proclaims that the blue one is inferior. In 2010 America proclaims that both have identical intelligence. BOTH CLAIMS (racist and anti-racist) HAVE NO SUBSTANTIATING EVIDENCE.

-Ethnic studies classes would have us believe that certain minorities, such as black women and Asian men, are perceived as ugly because of the brainwashing media and Hollywood depicting white people as angelic beauties. They never bothered to consider that some people might really just tend to be ugly! Face is an important universal identifier of attractiveness, ingrained by evolution and TRANSCENDING culture, and different races have different faces. They also never bothered to consider that Asians are very non-hairy, which is a FEMININE feature. Females do not have chest hair, and neither do most Asian men. And most girls do not like girly men; this is also evolutionary rather than cultural, for obvious reasons.

-Music classes would have us believe that Western musical harmony is widespread because of cultural imperialism. They say that as babies we would not prefer one system over another. However, let's note some important facts: The Asian pentatonic scale and the Middle Eastern phrygian minor scale are both SUBSETS of Western chromatic tonality! This means that you can create foreign styles with the Western system, but you cannot create Western music with the foreign system. It therefore comes as no surprise that each of these cultures saw value in enriching their music with new colors. In turn, Western music was also enriched with foreign elements, so it's not like the spread was one-directional.

The civil rights movement involved focus on equality for human beings, skepticism towards propaganda like "whites are superior," and committing to what is right. I ask you now to maintain this attitude towards the new rising tide. Remain a TRUE liberal, and don't hop on the bandwagon of liars out of SHARED FEAR of racism.

hot chick, drug experiments, and judo dream

RAW TEXT (short version): Took pix Everyone likes me Into society room hit on chick kiss good results. I leave. Days later dream breathe/run to same room sign forms for society no time commitment. Days later drink weird juice fan very cold. I dance but they say "wut u doin?" Not party. Tests. Effects subside but I know movie ends w everyone dying. Oh before that, while fan cold Mr Grantham goes out of room and doesn't let me out. Concerned admin. Ok so he's gonna make us drink another. I slowly then quietly run away. run a lot till I in field near dorm but he appear from other side We judo (he Han now) but he say if I beat him at judo he'll curse/kill me I'm like wtf.


DETAILED RECOLLECTIONS (long version):

I was with my family, and we were leaving this place to go home. Parents and sister had gone ahead, but I had taken a detour into one of many rooms in this building. It is some sort of long but informal dining room, with long tables.

I stride confidently into the room and there's a lot of dudes and a couple of chicks. They are just drinking and having a good time, and they remind me of frat/sorority people. Though no one knows me, everyone welcomes me because I am the new random guy who walked in. Somehow I also strike up a fun conversation with the one hot chick.

There is one adult about 30 years old. He takes some pictures of us. I pose with the hot chick and kiss her a bit. She playfully pretends to reject me but actually likes it.

I say gotta go and run back to rejoin my family and we leave. I realize no one has my phone number or even name. Oh well.

---stuff happens here. I think maybe I even awaken for a bit, then fall back asleep.---

I am jogging back to the dining room place (which I now know to be in UC Berkeley), because I want to get a chance to hang out with those fun people again. I arrive at the sign-up headquarters building, which is empty. The only person in the building is the 30-yr-old cameraman I saw earlier. He tells me he is the head of the organization of these people. I ask what the "time commitments" are. He tells me there are no mandatory tasks, chores, or volunteer activities, or any sort of "time commitment" other than having fun -- no strings attached other than an $80 payment per year for booze and such. So I sign up.

Next I walk into another dining hall style room. The people I met earlier are all there. We start drinking a bit. I also drink some spiked punch.

Minutes later I start to realize the air coming from the fan is very, very cold relative to the rest of the room. Since it is a regular fan with no cooling device I grow suspicious and ask people what is going on. They don't seem to care. Everyone is just sitting or talking quietly; no one is partying.

To try to relieve the tension I get up and dance in the middle of a circle. But they look at me like "what are you doing?" and it's not because of my bad dancing. I realize it is because we're not here to party. We are drinking strange drugs as an experiment for the 30-yr-old dude. Everyone is sitting around idly or talking quietly, looking serious. No smiles. No laughter. I only just realized.

I try to exit the room, but the 30-yr-old dude -- who is now my band teacher Mr. Grantham -- beats me to the door, exits the room and locks the door so I can't get out. I rattle the door handle thinking that he is not evil and will let me leave, but he just glares at me. I look outside the clear windows walls and he is talking to an investigator, apparently assuring him that nothing strange is going on inside the room.

The fan is still unnaturally cold. I know that the coldness is part of a hallucination, an effect of the drug.

The effects are subsiding but I know this dream will end with everyone dying, including me if I don't act soon. The 30-yr-old -- who is now my former Sound Art teacher -- walks back into the room and prepares a bubbly, pinkish liquid in a pot. He begins to offer the liquid to each person, all of whom voluntarily walk up and drink it. There's no way I'm going to subject myself to another, possibly deadly drug. Yet I know refusal is unacceptable and will be punished. So I rise and begin walking towards the exit, slowly at first to not appear suspicious, before breaking into a full-out dream-sprint (meaning, I am running as fast as I can as though underwater).

I successfully escape the room and run up some streets. A car rounds a corner and almost hits me. The man is still chasing me.

Suddenly as I am setting foot on a field (which resembles Duke University more than UC Berkeley) the guy -- who is now the Caucasian version of my Korean Judo Master -- appears from the OPPOSITE direction from which I was running. We judo spar a bit. He warns me that if I beat him, he will curse and/or kill me. My last thought is, "now that is very uncharacteristic of Master Han -- shouldn't he be happy if I beat him, because it means he taught me well?"

parkour/judo dream

I remember towards the end of my dream that I open my backyard gate a bit and peer outside, watching the silhouette of some dude my age walking towards me. I feel that he is hostile so I start to run back and he fires a couple of shots at me.

I parkour over my backyard's tall cement fence. Since he can't parkour he has to go all the way around to get his car first, during which I hit the emergency red button on an emergency post.

A police car who received my distress call zooms by and a backpack is flung out its window into my arms. I reach into the bag; the policeman has provided me a pistol with which to defend myself.

The antagonist, who is now my friend Sid, has finally found his car and is driving towards me. I shoot at him and his accomplice directly in the head, but either I miss or they have hard heads. Then they get out of their car and run towards me. Finally I drop one of the one who is not Sid after multiple head shots. The other guy (who is also not Sid anymore) runs up to me and I do ouchi-gari on him and then try to get into an advantageous ground position to pin him.

All this time the police officer is just sitting there in his car watching the show.

Dream: President strikes deal with devil

The president, currently an old white male, tells me, "You know, a deal with the devil could greatly benefit America." Then the devil appears. He is a normal-looking guy who is bald. But he is very big, like a giant.

The devil asks the president, "Mr. President, pardon my bringing up a matter of intolerable insignificance... but is there a fly on my head?" pointing to the normal-looking fly on his bald head.

"Why, yes," answers the president. The devil then grabs the fly and flicks it towards the president. While sailing through the air it becomes a large palm-sized mosquito. The president catches this mosquito in his hands and clutches it like it is a valuable piece of gold, speechless with reverence and awe of the devil. But his facial expression soon changes from admiration to dismay, as he chokes and dies from mosquito-poisoning.


More or less what the Devil looked like


More or less what the president looked like

Ideas for the future of gaming

Games are becoming more and more cinematic, featuring almost-photorealistic graphics, 7.1 surround sound (better than a home theater), stereotypical Hollywood music (not a bad thing), and stereotypical Hollywood special effects (not a bad thing either).

After all the technological advances recently made, the biggest pitfall of modern games is still the mode of input. Allow me to explain.

Here I am playing the story for Modern Warfare 2. This scene is set in a sub-urban setting that uncannily resembles Pleasanton. We're driving down a small street in a tank and I see Pleasanton-ish houses to either side, one of which is hanging an American flag from their wall. The unmistakable American format of the "Speed Limit: 25" sign is an intense reminder that this war is being fought in the US. I think to myself, "holy shit this is intense; I've never played a war game set in such a familiar place." And now there are people shooting at me, and I have to run for cover. Behind a house with wooden fences that look exactly like the ones we have in Pleasanton. Oh, and there's 3D sound.

Given all this awesomeness you'd think we'd have invented by now a way to simulate running around and crouching. But no. Just like 10 years ago I still used WASD and the mouse to move. To sprint faster all I have to do is press shift. Oh so hard. In fact the funniest part was the intense scene in which I have to pull a knife out of my stomach to throw it at someone, and it takes like a whole minute to pull it out because I am in pain, and the screen is all blurry and intense, and... the way to take it out is to press F really fast.


Ideas for the future of gaming:

1. An omni-directional treadmill on which you can run. People are trying to develop something like this but so far, demonstrations have not been able to go beyond walking speed.

2. 3D goggles or contact lenses that span your entire vision. This is the one I'm iffy about. Even with one eye closed, we still can choose where to focus. Is it possible to simulate focusing on 50 meters away with the screen is 0.1 inches away? Dunno.

3. High-resolution "texture" (in a literal, not graphical sense) gloves. Each finger of the glove will have a matrix of tiny "pixels" that can be raised or lowered. A rough material will probably have staggered raised pixels. A smooth material will have all pixels at the same level. To simulate sliding your hand across something, simply perform translation on the pixels as you would an LCD screen.

4. A way to simulate parkour: Is there some way to simulate doing a pull-up by using a full-bodied suit with joint locks and strength resistance at every joint, and a treadmill that can also rise and lower in elevation? What about a cat grab (parkour move)? I've been thinking about this and can't come up with a solution. I think maybe if the suit was given an extremity that can stably attach to the ceiling, it would work. Or the treadmill can spontaneously spawn obstacles when you get into range, by folding and unfolding wood really fast.

Feel free to steal any of these ideas as long as it means progress will ensue. I look forward to the day that I can play Mirror's Edge with my entire body instead of just mouse and keyboard.

Oh and I know someone might tell me it would be simpler to just "do this stuff in real life." But it is hard to jump across a 20-foot chasm between two skyscrapers in real life, while pursued by a mob of machine gunning helicopters.

The Ultimate Philosophical Question

One of the most intriguing questions in philosophy (and religion I suppose) is "why was there a world, instead of nothingness?" Well, I've got an even scarier question. It is:

Why is there such a thing as your first-person consciousness? (from my point of view, I substitute "your" for "my")



That question is the ultimate question and sadly slips by many people's brains. I have pondered it since I was three. It was extremely hard for me to word, and I tried to ask my friend this question years ago to no avail; he kept misunderstanding me. He kept saying "because I was lucky enough to be born into this world," which, although true, is completely unrelated to my question.

Hopefully, now that I have worded it a bit better, people will understand the question. In a nutshell, what I am asking is "why isn't the world just full of he's and she's? Why was there a ME?" WARNING: I am not marveling at my fortune for having been born, or put forth in the world, or existed or whatever; instead, I am marveling that there is such a thing as a "me" consciousness in the first place.

Do you understand my question? If so, please discuss, or offer better wordings.

The Ultimate Philosophical Question

One of the most intriguing questions in philosophy (and religion I suppose) is "why was there a world, instead of nothingness?" Well, I've got an even scarier question. It is:

Why is there such a thing as your first-person consciousness? (from my point of view, I substitute "your" for "my")



That question is the ultimate question and sadly slips by many people's brains. I have pondered it since I was three. It was extremely hard for me to word, and I tried to ask my friend this question years ago to no avail; he kept misunderstanding me. He kept saying "because I was lucky enough to be born into this world," which, although true, is completely unrelated to my question.

Hopefully, now that I have worded it a bit better, people will understand the question. In a nutshell, what I am asking is "why isn't the world just full of he's and she's? Why was there a ME?" WARNING: I am not marveling at my fortune for having been born, or put forth in the world, or existed or whatever; instead, I am marveling that there is such a thing as a "me" consciousness in the first place.

Do you understand my question? If so, please discuss, or offer better wordings.

Emo Dream -- Girlfriend Murderer (featuring an original soundtrack by Max Loh!)

The first thing I remember is having a gas-leaking canister shoved in my face.

I'd been walking down a slope towards my UC Berkeley dormitory late at night. This creepy Asian guy in a hooded black sweater had walked towards me and shoved a small smoke-emitting object at my nose.

I felt dazed, even high, and could barely think. Clearly, this gas was potent and life-threatening. (The thing about the dream-state is that it can simulate drugs very, very convincingly. This is because dreaming and being high are quite similar experiences. So I truly believed that this was real and I was going to die.) Immediately I turned away, held my breath, and began to run away from the dormitory. The murderer paused for a moment, then decided not to give chase; he only had a limited amount of time before he either got caught or died, and his target was the dormitory building full of sleeping students.

I ran to the outdoors dining area, which resembled the lunch area in Harvest Park Middle School. Though it was late at night, there were large crowds of people eating there, so I felt safe. I grabbed my phone and flipped it open, still feeling high/dazed. The phone's advanced AI knew I was in danger and therefore automatically dialed the local "911," which was 0900. When greeted by the female receptionist, the first thing I said was, "I'm high." This turned out to be a retarded decision, since it was followed by a slew of "reassurances."

"There's this guy -- " I kept saying, but was constantly interrupted by "calm down, calm down, it's okay." Finally I erupted and yelled "WILL YOU PLEASE JUST LET ME FINISH WHAT I'M SAYING!!!" and they became silent.

"There's this guy with a canister... and it's emanating gas!"

"We were told that 10 times already, Max. Victims are to meet at the east edge of Telegraph Avenue," the 911 girl said. Apparently they had already gotten numerous 911 calls from the dormitory building. Also, the 911 girl recognized my voice. Interesting (NOT AN IMPORTANT PLOT POINT).

So I start to make my way towards Telegraph. Although I am walking through a residential area, dense crowds of people fill the streets, perhaps walking towards the same meeting spot due to the current murder situation.

Someone calls me from an anonymous number. I pick up, "Hello?"

"Where are you?"

"Huh? Who are you?" I retort.

"I'm... Stanley..." says the man at the other end of the line. Then I hear him laughing with his friends just before he hangs up on me, saying "damn I fucked that up so bad." The murderer had attempted and failed to determine my location by calling me.

The murderer is clearly after me, but the crowds are so dense that I feel safe hiding amongst the multitude of faces. Unfortunately, before long one of the murderer's accomplices spies me and yells, "Here's Max!" The killer, who had been walking in front of me, turns around and runs after me. The people around us don't know what's going on, so they try to restrain both of us. I tell the guy who's restraining me, "That guy is going to literally murder me. He's a killer." He lets me go. Still, the murderer approaches rapidly, and I am running very slowly due to low-gravity dream-running. "Were I wearing my running shoes," I tell myself, "I'd be able to outrun this guy easily."

I parkour onto a thin ledge about 5 feet above the ground and grab hold of the chain link fence behind it. My real-life girlfriend and dream-world ex-girlfriend Fernanda emerges from the crowd. She is the murderer (due to a dream detail glitch, I have forgotten about the creepy Asian guy and therefore changed the identity of the murderer). It is raining. Her skin is wet, and her hair long like when we first met. She pleads with me to take her back, because apparently I had time to break up with her earlier when I found out she was a murderer. Naturally, I tell her that I broke up with her because she became a murderer, and I ask her why she tried to gas me. She ignores the question and continues to beg me to take her back. A small crowd has gathered around the scene. I gaze down at her from the ledge. She is so beautiful, and I yearn for her. Yet, she is insane and will attempt to kill me again if we get back together. I am torn and begin to cry. Soundtrack to this scene: a 2-measure phrase that I subconsciously composed that loops over and over again, included here. I made this in two seconds using Logic Pro.

The end.


Representative of the murderer's garbs, but not the setting.

Scary Dream for Musical Nerd

I woke up in my bed, and starting stretching and yawning. I started to make typical yawning wake-up sounds but soon realized that my voice was quantized to the pitch of low A. I lowered my voice just a bit and it jumped to low D. I lowered and heightened my voice rapidly and it fluctuated between this perfect 5th interval D and A. This was extremely scary, since I was unable to make any sounds other than D and A. I sounded like some sort of weird tribal shaman.

Then I woke up for real. Just to be sure I was really awake, I sang an A, and then a G#. My voice produced an A and a G# instead of A and D. PHEWPH!

Music is like food

Traditionally, people liken music to traditional visual arts, such as painting or sculpting. This is rather erroneous. Music is more like food than anything else.

-There is the "composer" (the person who invented the recipe) and there is the "performer" (the person who cooks the food). The composer is credited as the intellectual creator but the performer has the freedom to insert his own artistic interpretations/deviations, just like in cooking. Some "folk songs" (well-known popular recipes, e.g. burrito) have been around for millenia but people are always finding new ways to "remix" them.

-Music and food are both artistic creations that cater towards the masses. We have our Britney Spears (McDonalds), Coldplay (In-N-Out), and Radiohead (Chipotle). The food n00bs who like sugary milk chocolate tend to also like tasteless music. The food pros who dislike sweets usually avoid bad music.

-Often, a band will be famous for one or two songs, e.g. "The Eagles are ok, but their song Hotel California rocks my socks." Similarly, some restaurants are famous for just one or two dishes.

-The average person, upon hearing a song, feels emotions but cannot identify the exact pitches being played. A skilled musician hears a song and knows exactly what notes and chords are being played by what instruments. Similarly, the average person, upon tasting some food, feels some emotions but cannot identify the exact ingredients being used. A skilled chef tastes some food and knows exactly how much salt and what types of oil were used.

-Skilled chefs (such as the ones featured on the TV program Iron Chef) are often creative, thinking of new ways to make their food more uniquely tasteful and beautiful. However, food doesn't have to be cooked by a top chef to be enjoyable; it can be as stereotypical and uncreative as a hamburger or ice cream cone. Similarly, skilled composers strive to find a way to affix a unique sound or style to their music, but some people such as Jason Mraz still find success in the extremely overused I V vi IV chord progression. In either case, whether it is original or stereotypical, the end product must still be enjoyable.

This is why the new 21st century "avant-garde" musicians are going down the wrong path. These people pride themselves with composing music that sounds somewhat interesting and extremely horrible. Imagine if a chef mixed together some orange juice, syrup, vinegar, poo, and eggs together into an ornate bowl and said, "Voila, zis is avant garde! I am proud of my creation because normal people will never eat it!" Perhaps if avant-garde musicians treated their music like food rather than modern art, they would realize that originality isn't everything, and that the end product must still be tasty.


Catering to the inferior half of America

Piracy is not stealing

Using bittorrent to download something is not equivalent to stealing a DVD from a retail store. I'm tired of these public messages that say "would you steal a DVD? Because piracy is the same thing." It's not.

Piracy usually involves downloading something for free that you wouldn't have bought anyway, e.g. torrenting a $500 program that you wouldn't pay $500 dollars for, or even torrenting a $5 movie that you wouldn't pay $5 for.

When you steal, the store or original company loses a physical product, which translates to monetary loss. When you download, you make a copy, which translates to free stuff out of thin air, without any loss for the company (unless you would have bought it if piracy were not an available option, which is rare).

Piracy does create significant revenue loss by discouraging the purchase of items. There are people who used to buy expensive products that have turned to piracy. However, piracy enables the underprivileged to get their hands on expensive programs that they would never have bought.

Example: If you never wanted to buy Microsoft Office in the first place but ended up downloading it for free, then you technically did not decrease Microsoft's revenue at all.