MacGyver: Always Prepared For Adventure
Here's another weird dream: I'm pretty sure it was a movie and I was Jim Carrey, and the other main character was a hollywood version of Colleen Kelly (although I guess that's the REAL Colleen... but bear with me). Jim, or me, or whoever... I was... no, I'd better say Jim... okay, so Jim Carrey was playing this small town news reporter who had abnormally long legs which contributed to his uneasiness around women. (He wasn't tall, it was that most of his body was legs) He was especially uneasy around women that he had feelings for, like the Colleen character, who was also a news reporter. He obviously liked her... and their travels together had brought them from some place in Michigan (I'll get to that in a second) to someplace... else. And I'm not sure that it was set in the present... but it may have been some time in the early eighties. The time period was mixed up because it seemed like Carrey and Kelly were wearing 1950s apparel (he in a suit, she in a nice sun dress [can I say sun dress? does that even mean anything?]), and the car they were driving was easily circa 1950s... but, now, this is really the only part of the dream I remember: They were pulled over by a silver Chevy Corvette. This is the part of the dream where Jim Carrey becomes me, because it wasn't him talking to the cop, it was me. And he (the cop) didn't ask for my license and registration, he asked for something a lot more technical sounding (the language escapes my conscious mind)... but I knew that he wanted my license and registration. And, after handing him what he needed, I let him have a "piece of my mind," as they say. I kept saying that a police officer in a silver Chevy Corvette is unfair, that it's a trap... other people were speeding, too... why was I singled out? That's when the cop said something about me being from Michigan (or at least having Michigan plates)... and I reiterated how unfair it was. "Look at the other cars!" I demanded... and then I stuck my head out the window to look at how the other cars were speeding too, and I realized that I was stopped in the middle lane of the highway... and there seemed to be an unusual amount of UHauls on the road that day. What happened next? My alarm went off... sorry kids. Oh... and my dreams suck.

Today I was checking out the Onion's website and I saw that Seth MacFarlane gave an interview. The Family Guy being one of my, if not THE, favorite show ever in history ever, I read the article. I learned something very interesting/kind of disturbing: Seth was scheduled to go fly on one of the planes used in the 9/11 attacks. And, instead of it being a religious experience, or some way for him to refocus himself because he almost died a certain and horrible death... he shrugs it off as if people die in horrible plane crashes every day. I found that fascinating. I would probably be one of those irritating "born again" people if I had been scheduled to go on one of those flights but didn't. Or, at the very least, felt like I had been given a second chance at life. It doesn't seem to effect Mr. MacFarlane in the least. How interesting.

Tonight was also another one of my very special Conservatory Classes. Hey class? why don't you keep kicking my ass, please? Thanks a bunch. I am now under the impression that Gellman, my teacher, thinks I'm a fucking idiot. Whenever I try to talk, it seems like his eyes glaze over and he starts snoring. Okay, it's not that bad... but he has a certain way of making me feel like an idiot from the very beginning of class ALL THE WAY to the end of class. We started "doing scenes"... by which I mean we were standing, acting, and were forced to use the numbers 1-50 instead of actual dialog. And interesting technique, to be sure. Because you could tell when someone didn't know what they were "saying"... they were just spouting off numbers. We then played a gibberish game, which I historically have hated... but I figured I couldn't make myself feel any MORE like an idiot, so why not jump into it. And, honestly, I didn't do so bad. I was "translating" from gibberish to English and the woman for whom I was translating said I caught exactly what she was 'saying' about three times. Maybe I'll be better off in foreign countries than I think. Or maybe I was just playing a stupid game and it's level of intelligence was equal to my own. One of those two things is true.

After class, waiting for me at my apartment was the day's mail. And in the mail today was a delayed birthday gift: the first season of MacGyver!!! Yes, yes... it's a lame show and me loving it is equally lame. But I am lame and I do love it. So far I've watched the pilot (which included Dana Elcar, but not as Pete Thornton of the Phoenix Foundation [did you know Dana Elcar is from Michigan? did you know he went blind DURING the run of the show... and that they wrote in that Pete Thornton was also going blind? Oh. Then you know more than I do... because that was news to me]) and what could possibly be MacGyver's only kiss in the show--and the second show! wherein MacGyver and a village of slaves take down a Burmese General with the cunning use of the pulley! (BTW we couldn't come up with a better word for it than "pulley"? "What's it do?", "It pulls", "The pulley!") What a great show. I have a feeling I'm going to lose countless hours to watching the first full season... it's SIX (6!) DVDs... something like 1045 minutes of commercial-free MacGyver action (that's about 17 and 1/2 hours for those of you who don't do math [read: non-Asians {why did I have to go there?}]). I can't wait for season 2, because it's the first appearance of Murdoc! Wooo!!! My point is that I love MacGyver... and I don't care who knows about it.

#2 Worst of 2004 - Say Hello to Corporate!John We certainly met a new side of me in 2004. Maybe the Corporate!John who worked at Coldstone was new to you all, but I always knew he was inside of me. I knew that I could easily become someone who can talk about people as if they were numbers, with no emotional attachment what-so-ever... someone who could allow himself to become consumed by his work, and by making the most profit with the smoothest flow of goods-to-customers as possible. I don't know why I knew he existed... I just did. Perhaps it was simply my fear of me becoming that kind of person that hinted to me of his existence; or perhaps I've always known that I could easily be an asshole just to make money--growning up with what seemed like not a lot of it (I turned out to be wrong... we just spent the money in odd ways... and lived in a place where not-a-lot of people have not-a-lot of money). In any case, I ended up being someone who I never wanted to be in 2004... the kind of person who I hated at Albion... the kind of person who I never thought would actually be me. The silver lining to this story is that we all know how it ended (yes, badly, but the proper outcome came out in the end). Even though it left me in a half-year long bad break-up funk... I was able to focus on what I wanted to focus on during that time. But I feel a little like Dr. Jekyll: In the back of my mind, I know that Mr. Hyde lives inside of me; and it scares me to death to think that he might resurface.