Sherlock

I have been sick lately, which means that I've had lots of weird dreams. I've also had second series of Sherlock on DVD, but haven't gotten around watching. Probably because some people have spoiled it for me by criticizing it. Last night I had a dream where my sister and me watched latest Sherlock. IF you are not familiar with it, it is a BBC television series where Benedict Cumberbatch plays Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman plays Watson. In this story there was a terrorist bomb somewhere in London and Sherlock Holmes was asked to help. Of course, Moriarty was behind the whole plot and he wanted to play cat and mouse with Holmes by running him from one clue to another. He also had messed up the traffic in London so badly that only way to move around fast enough was London Underground. They did that by using Oyster Card and, since Sherlock's knowledge of every street in London would be of no use, route planner mobile app. Pretty nice product placement, I thought. What followed was exciting chase through London Underground switching from one line to another. Basically Holmes and Watson went to a new place to solve clue left by Moriarty. They called man with the name "Samuli Edelmann", which was funny because Samuli Edelmann played Moriarty's henchman. This led a trap going off and Holmes and Watson ending up in a fall that resembled rollercoaster ride. It worked pretty fell, because I still flet the movement even when I closed my eyes. At some point Irene Adler joined them in 19th century dress. Eventually they found Moriarty's headquarters that was full of partying people. They managed to go to a study without being noticed and there was a laptop with message from Moriarty. Unfortunately I accidentaly pressed close button on video window instead of play.

Night between August 1st and 2nd.

I was auditioning for a new TV sitcom and there were two women interviewing me. One of them was Fiona Allen, who was the creator of the series and the other one was the producer of the show who I did not recognize. The interview consisted of the producer blowing aire with some kind of device on my face to create an atmosphere and then I was supposed to make appropriate sound effects. This was somehow related to the main character of the show, but I think they hadn't made their mind up about that yet. I sucked at that. I got the atmosphere "hints" all wrong and my sound effects weren't any good. For example, I tried to make storm noises when they were thinking about rock concert. I said that since I'm no good at this, there is no point in continuing the interview. This must have been a BBC production, because on the elevator there were Simon Mayo who talked with a third guy about The Exorcist sequel currently in the making. I commented how he and Mark Kermode seem to often meet Exorcist fans. I knew this because he sometimes records his elevator conversations for his podcast I listen to.

Another dream was about stunt that was being filmed for a movie. It was in a style of documentaries about these things. So there was a narrator explaining things and lots of aerial shots. The stunt was a guy jumping on top of Shinkansen train. At this point I should point out that for some reason I for long time thought that trains use parallel overhead lines. The stuntman jumped from a platform he put on top of the overhead lines (or rather, messenger wires) to make it easier to aim between the parallel overhead lines. Also to add safety the power would be cut from a section of the overhead lines. Adam Savage and two kids were on the side of the track to do that. The narrator explained that the train could still move because at the end of the train there is another drive unit that would still get power and when the end of the train reaches the point where power is cut, the head of train once again has power because the section for witch the power is cut is shorter than the train. In addition to that drive units have battery power for reserve.

I also had lots of other dreams, but I don't remember exact details. In one dream I had to get off rail tracks because of oncoming train. Then I was in a bus an acquaintance gave me some candy and from a window I saw a train with moving cars. (I mean cargo cars with moving company's logo on them) Then the bus started to swing and swivel and I think we almost hit a tram. Then I went to a shopping center even though I didn't have any money. It was an old stone building and with high gothic doorways looked more like a cathedral. I went around a coner to see if there was something interesting, but it was only a restaurant (or café) and I run away before they asked me to order something. Then the ceiling started to leak water and we tried to break windows to let the water and us out before we drown. I got a narrow horizontal window open, but I had to keep it open with my fingers and not much water got out. I managed to get out somehow. There was also a dream about teenaged girl chasing assassin. It was more like Nancy Drew than Hanna to not give any wrong impressions. I also talked with my sister about my dreams and she told about her dream of growing plants in a backyard that grew houses.

The Best Galactica Episode Ever!

This post have different title because I had this dream already couple of nights ago and can't remember exactly when. Our local science fiction television channel (MTV3 Scifi) show's original Galactica. (This tells you something about the quality of the channel.) They seem to have run out of it because last time I watched it, it was the second episode of Galactica 1980. Before that I saw the episode where they blew up Cylon Basestar. Which lead to following dream. (May contain spoilers for original Galactica)

So, Galactica has found the Earth, but it is modern day Earth (well, 1980) and can't help against Cylons. The investigators on Earth have however found a clue:"Follow the desolation road." I was very proud that I realized before characters that one of the Apollo astronauts (Buzz Aldrin) described moonscape as "magnificent desolation" and the "desolation road" must be the tracks left by moon buggy. ("Desolation Road" is also a title of a book by Ian McDonald, probably a reference to Bob Dylan's song "Desolation Row", which is on "Watchmen" movie soundtrack performed by My Chemical Romance. "Follow the road" itself is from The Wizard of Oz, to complete the list of cultural references.)

Next we see the moon and then Earth behind it and I was thinking that the special effects are pretty impressive for a tv show from 1980. Meanwhile, Cylons attach Galactica with round disks that attach to side of Galactica and drill a hole on it. From the holes come Cylons that have no legs. Probably because the disks are so small that they don't fit full sized Cylons. It turns out that on the moon lives technically vastly advanced alien colony that promises to help Galactica and they send heros of the show (I don't think they are Starbuck and Apollo from original series or Troy and Dillon from Galactica 1980) go to Cylon Basestar to disable it (or it's weapons). At this point I realized that I was dreaming and started thinking about how to make my own version. This had some interesting side effects.

First of all, Cylons stopped to be Cylons and their Basestar turned into generic space station. The space station had hangar on level 9 and main control station on level 10, so our people needed to go only one level up on elevator that looked like pretty normal elevator with metall walls. Unfortunately I don't have access to 10-story (or higher) building, which complicates filming a bit. Corridors looked like normal office corridor. So, only problem would be the hangar, but that can be done with CGI. And that was pretty much it.

Night between July 30th and 31st

A guy I knew at University was giving joke presents to people. He had left me a small cardboard package for kid's colouring book and small set of colour pencils. Inside he had put lots of thick marker pens (mostly blue) and a thick pile of overhead transparencies that had either typewritten text or cartoons on them. The text was about some conspiracy theory, but I have forgotten details. Cartoons were all different. There was 6 or 8 panels per page and they were in simple line draw style similar to IKEA assembly instructions or airplane safety instructions.

Night between July 17th and 18th

I have started writing about couple of my dreams, but never finished them. I have also started to have dreams that are more like ideas. I'm thinking about an idea without being completely dreaming or awake. Last night it was about late night talk show with a black guy that would have "strong language and full frontal male nudity", as the term goes. The idea is to push the envelope by taking controversial subjects and unconventional approaches. Showing that entertainment can be educational. ("We don't call this edutainment, because that sounds like a cheesy kid's show.") Some pieces were rant about "Seven Dirty Words" (Tits? That's baby talk! That's kid's talk! Should wee-wee and bo-bo be cencored, too?) and bunch of hunky guys singing wearing (only) towels (Probably from "Naked Boys Singing") and throwing those towels away at the end of their number.

I also saw a silent movie clip about some Latin term that had Greek soldiers (at least one had Spartan helmet with huge plume). Then I tried to look up the Latin words from a dictionary, but kept picking up encyclopedia, which was a problem because it had multiple volumes and entries were organized under categories and not just alphabetically. I would try to find the word, not find it, then realize that I was looking under a wrong category, realize that I must be dreaming because I don't own an encyclopedia, wake up and then repeat it again.

Night between June 10th and June 11th

I was on a cruise. We pretended that it was luxury cruise in 1920's. I guess we were roleplaying Agatha Christie style murder mystery since everyone seemed to play a role, but I apparently got bored pretty fast because I started to look from a paper if there was anything interesting on tv.

In my next dream there were interesting things on tv. I was in an airplane (I think). In the back there was tv that was flicking from channel to channel. Many of the channels were showing Bond movies. I especially would have liked to see the one from 70s where Michael Caine played Bond and Chevy Chase played the villain. They were also on the back of a plane playing some kind of game controlling metal balls with magnetic fields. At one point Chevy Chase character excused himself. There were 3 doors in the back. Left one was men's bathroom, right one women's bathroom and middle lead to another room, but it was a trap and actually lead into nothing a bit like elevator in "The Spy Who Loved Me" or exit from Zorin's Zeppelin in "A View to a Kill". But instead of leaving through middle door the bad guy was found hiding underwater in ladies' toilet (and I don't mean bathroom).

There was also a scene where M played chess against general Gogol using electronically controlled chess board which then turned out to be war room table having world map with Union Flag decorations where UK and USSR ships moved.