Dreaaaam.. Dream Dream Dream!

I had the weirdest (and historically inaccurate) dream last night.

I am going to share it here for the intrigue and amusement of any and all who read it.

Now, I don’t know how, but I travelled back in time (and location?) and ended up in 1920’s England, at the primary/elementary school of my Grandad. I had my big camera with me, which was clearly out of place (Digital camera pre 1990 is very out of place!) in the time period so I was trying to take photos and being discreet as possible.

Anyway, I was in a lunchroom kinda thing, it was very grey and dull, and my 7-8 year old grandfather was at a table with 3 other boys talking quietly (I was across the room, my big 22 year old self). I recognized him almost immediately, as he looked pretty much like the photos of seen of my Dad as a young boy, and a few times he turned his head I noticed characteristics and resemblances of how he looks and acts as I’ve known him. The people I was there with decided it was time to leave, but I mustered up the courage to ask my young grandfather for confirmation that he was who I thought he was.

“Is your name Brian?”

“Yes, it is.”

“That’s your middle name isn’t it?”

“Not any more!”

“Do you mind if I ask what your first name used to be?”

“Coraline!” (I have NO clue where that came from.. I saw the movie like…a month ago and haven’t really thought about it since. Now that I think about it though, I played Tic-tac-toe/naughts and crosses with a 5 year old girl the other night, only we used pink and blue ‘buttons’ on a board of 9 squares, each containing the picture of a character from the movie. I digress..)

At this point I really had to follow the rest of my group out the door (they were all late teens/adults) but I took the opportunity to snap some more photos of my granddad across the room, he wasn’t watching having returned to the conversation with his friends.

I was led outside, and it was kindof like a gameshow. I’m not sure if I’ve had similar dreams before, or if it really is something I’ve seen on TV or in a movie, but I was to be given challenges to complete either for money or for the people I was working with (they were all teens I think) to live, big difference but I don’t remember which. May have even been both!

It was then that I realized there was snow on the ground, and my first challenge was related to one of the people on my team sliding around the school, I just wasn’t allowed to let him damage any classrooms in any way. You can probably tell by now that while my dreams are fairly specific, there isn’t a lot of detail as to how things happen, I just know they do. I guided the guy between buildings and managed to get him out onto the open sports fields, which I realised too late was a bad thing to do, as the fields themselves were/are a classroom (for PhysEd! Whether that even existed in the 20’s I doubt… We’d also slid along the inside edge of a clearly marked football field). Anyway, it was at this point where the host/gamemaster was walking along the field either with cameramen or henchmen and was about to reveal some kind of information when I woke up.

It was a weird night last night – I wasn’t sleepy, then I was really sleepy so I rolled over to sleep and couldn’t, then I got awake and somewhere in that mix (and a lot of “Are you OK?’s” from Kelly (who was also having a difficult time sleeping)) I fell asleep. Then had to get up at around 8:30 to go let the chickens out (I HATE CHICKENS.. more on them later) and came back and fell asleep awkwardly on the yellow chair, where the dream continued.

So there you have it, my weird dream of weirdness, laugh or analyze, or if you REALLY must, do both 😉

3 Almost Completely Unrelated Things…

The first two are both geeky..

Firstly I got my control panel system past the first stumbling block: user login/out. I imagine this is a hard problem for a number of programmers as it is almost always the first step in a secure system. Now that it’s in place I can build everything else around the existing security system (rather than having to build everything else with the prospect of applying security to it later and probably rewriting it all etc).

My second achievement of the day was IPv6 vhosts. I assigned 20-odd IPv6 addresses to Telly for my BNC (ZNC is good so far if anyone is looking for an IPv6/SSL aware IRC Bouncer). Over the last 24 hours or so I assigned 10 of those vHosts. The list is available here. I will be looking into IPv6 hosts for Rizzo next week (IE, seeing if it is workable), so will work on coming up with some more vHosts then.

The third accomplishment, and completely unrelated to the other two in any way, I got my VA Learners permit. If I’d been aware that Kelly’s car actually was insured I could have taken the road skills test and got a full license, but I also think I should take some time to practice first.

That is all, good readers, that is all.

I Am Amused.

I don’t know why, I found this in the logs from while I was sleeping last night, and I found it amusing. Not hilarious, but enough to warrant a large smile.

[06:16:37] * Guest (~NewJava@uccn-DA3CFDAF.dyn.iinet.net.au) has joined #uccn
[06:16:42] <Guest> hi
[06:17:10] * Midorikawa|Psychosis has quit (Ping timeout)
[06:18:22] <Guest> anyone can they tell me how the bible is proven to not be another story like media
[06:19:14] * Mid0rikawa|Psychosis has quit (Ping timeout)
[06:20:10] * Mid0rikawa|Psychosis (~Midor1kaw@staff.unitedchristianchat.net) has joined #uccn
[06:20:22] <Guest> hi psychosis
[06:20:24] * M1dorikawa|Psychosis has quit (Ping timeout)
[06:21:49] <Guest> Anyone talk here
[06:33:40] <Guest> hey
[06:34:07] <Guest> satin has been created by the jews
[06:34:43] <Guest> jesus was a story created by the romans. The vatican must know
[06:40:44] <Mid0rikawa|Psychosis> …right. you keep believing that.
[06:42:33] <Mid0rikawa|Psychosis> By the way, if you want to troll, at least learn basic spelling.
[06:42:52] <Mid0rikawa|Psychosis> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/satin
[06:43:03] * Guest has quit (Quit: :: For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matt. 18:20) :: United Christian Chat Network ::)

Far too many stupid trolls nowdays. Nothing interesting anymore. Most of them don’t even argue their points very well..

ThinkGeek!

Today I became a ThinkGeek.com affiliate.

If you click on of the thinkgeek links on any of my sites I’ll get a 7% commission on anything you the purchase from them! Cool, huh?

Anyway, last night I went with Kelly and her mom to the ER (A&E for you Kiwis out there), where Kel’s sister Katie had been taken by her husband, Jesse. She was having all kinds of pains as well as dizziness and such. In the end it was basically decided to be an inner ear infection (she told us the technical term, but I forget). 4 hours later and we were home again!

Her friend, Laura, didn’t have a great night either – one of her room mates had attempted suicide by wrist-slitting, and there was blood all over the living room of her house.. We saw her arrive while she was talking on her phone to Katie and she told us what had happened! Not a cool day for her!

I also made the mistake of twittering where I was going, which synced my facebook status, and apparently a lot of people were more worried than they needed to be so, sorry guys!

No photos, I was nice and didn’t take the camera 😉

Lights, Camera, eBay

I’ve found myself in the market for a 35mm camera. Now, at the beginning of the week I was looking non-specifically for anything good that worked well and was in good condition. I then progressed to 3 specific brands (Nikon, Canon, Olympus) and then reached a point of favoring the Olympus OM series a little over the Canon EOS series.

I like the Olympus OM series because dad owned an OM-1 (a few years after he’d owned and sold an OM-10 due to financial difficulties – that was before my time though) and it was what I learnt how to really take photos before I bought my Fujifilm S5600. So, I suppose they have a feeling of prior knowledge with me, I know what they feel like and I know what they can (and, to a large degree, can’t) do. But, when I asked dad if he had a preference (he said the OM-10, btw) he reminded me that while they were great cameras they are now getting on a bit, 30-35 years old now for the most part.

I kept a bunch of the Olympus’s on my watchlist and moved on to the Canon EOS series. Now, Kelly and I have discussed and agreed that we both want Canon Rebel’s at some point in the not-too-distant future. Whether it is the XSi (EOS 450D) model or whatever they bring out next will be decided by time, money, and available options at time of purchase. I still want a 35mm camera though.. What I hadn’t realised was that the Canon EOS digital SLR range uses the same EF Lens mount as the EOS 35mm range. There are a couple of differences being added (since the 300D, I believe) in that they are now using an EF-S, but this mount is backwards compatible, so I should be able to use any EF lenses I pick up interchangeably between a 35mm and a digital.

All the Olympus models were removed from my watch list, replaced by various Canon EOS 35mm cameras. It clearly needed to be pruned further, as I want the best deal I can find, preferably the newest camera for the lowest price possible. Time for further research on how Canon did their EOS range, compared with what is available on eBay.

Now, mostly what I’m interested in are a small range of the EOS series: the Rebel G, the Rebel 2000, the Rebel K2 and the Rebel T2. I have very little interest in anything pre-1995 anymore, and it seems most of these may be available with Lens and batteries for ~$30USD. If I have to I’ll spend a little more for a Buy Now, but I’m gonna try my luck at auctions first. I did bid on a faulty Rebel G by accident though, if someone wants to outbid…feel free…

Slowdom

I haven’t updated this week, mostly because I’ve been busy with a server move – My VPS provider decided to move from a server with ThePlanet to a server with Limestone Networks, and so I’ve been setting up email servers and the like on the new box.

So, what is new with Zeke and I-aL?

DailySerene.com is now down to Monday/Wednesday/Friday updates owing to lack of contributions. If you have serene pictures that you would like to share, share! Don’t be afraid of rejection, and don’t worry if you don’t have your own photo website to advertize.

I’m starting work on a photoblog, to share photos that may already be up at DS, but also those that aren’t necessarily appropriate for DS.

UCCN got a twitter account yesterday, and followed several of it’s regular chatters. It’s displaying what they’re doing at UnitedChristianChat.net.

I finished House Season 2 the other day, and about to start episode 6 of Season 3.

Kelly should be home about as it ends, and with Coke! Yay!!

The Deer Hunter

The Deer Hunter was a 1978 movie starring Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep, among others.

I have never seen the movie, however I have heard the Shadows rendition of “Cavatina” – the theme from the movie. I remember watching them play it as an interlude while Cliff Richard “counted money” at a live show they did together. I remember listening and enjoying how it flowed, and wished I could play it.

Being a guitarist, I looked up the tabs and gave it a try. It was an abominable failure, as it was beyond my abilities at the time. That version still is, but I found a backing track and learned how to play it in the same way the Shadows did and have been practicing on and off for the last couple of days. Today I recorded it – not the way I would have liked to, but I tried yesterday to make it work as a multi-track and couldn’t, so I played along with it and recorded it all as one track. It still doesn’t sound perfect, aside from a couple of slide mistakes (and a missed fret once) I think the guitar is slightly off tune compared to the track. It will suffice for now until I can record a better version some time.

I’ve uploaded an MP3 at http://rizzo.i-al.net/~zeke/Cavatina.mp3 for your ear-bleeding pleasure 😉

UPDATE: Credit where credit is due (I had this in my orignal post but it wasn’t saved etc etc..) – the backing track came from http://goran.tangring.com/index-filer/backings.htm