What if theories

If there's anything more boring than watching paint dry is to listen to other people's dreams. And possibly the only thing more boring than that is to read about other people's dreams. So let me tell you about this dream I had last night...

Of course I'm not going to do that. But let's stick to the topic of dreams. Of course you've had dreams about acquaintances or even total strangers before, and possibly dreams that don't make much sense. A great many things could be said about nonsense dreams, and Freud would have a blast poring over them, but let's not go there. Rather, instead of addressing the causes and implications of preposterous dreams, let's talk of the consequences.

But Shark, you charismatic stallion, what consequences could silly little ravings of one's subounscious have to a sensible person?

Well, you might not want to call me a charismatic stallion, or Mr. Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw might take offence that you're imitating his fans, rather than understand that such imitation is really the highest form of homage... to his fans... from my fans. Nonsensical dreams, then.

Consequences, then. To address your question, I don't think there might realistically be any consequences, but what if any time you dreamt of someone, that person had the same dream from their prespective? Of course limitations must exist to this hypotheseis, such as it can only be verified if both people are asleep and in REM stage (Rapid Eye Movement, naturally, not asleep on stage at an REM concert) at the same time. Wouldn't that be neat? Some Hawaiian would have woken up this morning in a right confusion, then.

Pax vobiscum atque vale.

ArabianShark would like to remind you that, for a working graph cut algorithm, one should assign costs to edges with a formula along the lines of e^(-k*d), where k is a threshold constant greater than 1 and d is a propperly computed distance value between the color values of the nodes.

Diets and Consequences

For this past weekend, as I was set to do a lot of dining out, I decided I wasn't going to stick to my diet. Sure, I wasn't about to go on a carb spree, and I kept well away from refined sugars, but I thought the odd potato wouldn't lay waste to over six months of dieting. I even allowed myself to indulge on some crisps.

Not just any crisps, I'd like to point out. Those were the fine "gourmet" crisps, alledgedly cut extra thin from selected potatoes and fried in extra virgin oil or something. Even the package is black and, as we all know, everything that comes wrapped in black is of superior grade, superb quality, exquisite taste and so on and so forth. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Saturday lunch was a casual snack at a seaside café bar and consisted of a hot dog with chips. I hadn't tasted chips in six months (not quite, if you count the very odd chip here and there, very few and very far between), and I found myself not enjoying them as much as I had expected. I thought those were probably poor quality chips, because lets face it, when was the last time you were served fine cuisine at a sea side café bar?

Later that night I got my teeth into those fine quality crisps, and they still didn't taste as good as I remember. That I did not expect...

So am I to conclude that after six months of strict(ish) diet I no longer like some of the high-carb, fattening foods I was so fond of as much as I used to? Compound to that that, after what can be called oversatisfaction, I find myself not enjoying some foods within my diet as much as I used to, and it seems like I'm growing to dislike food altogether.

Oh, well, I'll always have heroin.

Pax vobiscum atque vale.

ArabianShark has yet to verify that cream sauce, extra cheese, onion, bacon and pepperoni pizza no longer tastes as good, but that won't come to pass anytime soon. Although I might have some more chips someday, just to be sure.

Creepy...

Toniht, the most unremarkable, banal thing happened. I had a dread. Well, several, in fact, that I remember. One of them was about opening a parcel, only to find a novelty item I had sent for about a week ago. Then, as it is costumary when one is dreaming, I woke up.

You know how sometimes you wake up from a nightmare and instantly know it was all a dream and you kind of feel relieved? or when you're having a great dream and you know the moment you wake up that it wasn't real and you feel a bit frustrated and a bit angry and bit sad? Well, it was nothing like that. Instead, I wasn't sure I had been dreaming at all, and had to argue with myself to decide whether my parcel had arived or not. All pretty run of the mill, really. I concluded my parcel hadn't arrived because I have placed my order a week ago today, and it wouldn't have been dispatched for at least one or two days. Compound to that that the expected delivery time was 7 to 10 days, and it was far too early for my order to have arrived.

I snoozed some more, and, at about noon, when I wasn't likely to sleep anymore, I lay in bed lazily, contemplating my to-do list for the day and the disdainflu sensation that I just might blow it all off and doze the day away (I'm not going to do that... but I could) when a loud, angry buzz jerked me awake from my slumber.

It was the mailman.

With my order.

About which I had dreamt.

What are the odds? The package came sooner than expected and I foresaw it in a dream. In my book, that's pretty damn creepy.

Pax vobiscum atque vale.

ArabianShark does not see dead people... yet!