[trash-talk] GR (sort of): A dream

[Claude Knaus]

Hi,

I've been writing dream diaries lately and this is the latest one. A
small part of it is Garbage related. Names are shortened to single
characters to protect their privacy. Anybody else has Garbage related
dreams?

-- Claude

Dream of Saturday, August 27th 2005
Fairs

I am at a fair (again!). Many different things are exhibited. Many
things are being explained to the visitors. I am in a dark room with a
dozen other people. People are facing a wall with a screen. Next to
the screen, the rear of a Space Shuttle is visible. It is smaller than
a real Space Shuttle, as it must fit into the room. The body and front
of the shuttle are not visible and extend to the left, outside the
room.

The movie being shown on the screen educates how Space Shuttles will
replace conventional air planes for transportation. They still have a
problem. The Space Shuttle needs to travel 1 km further than an
airplane over a distance of 1000 km. Once they have optimized that
last bit, the Space Shuttle can compete in every way with an airplane.

To demonstrate how a Space Shuttle can lift off an ordinary runway,
the engines of the Space Shuttle are ignited. It becomes clear now
that the shuttle is just a model; cheap fire effects (a la Flash
Gordon) are used to simulate the flames coming out of the rear. With a
lot of noise, the Space Shuttle is pulled out of the room. Just an
instant later, it comes back in reverse gear, much slower than it
launched.

        __
       /  | _
   ___/   |<_|
          | _
          |<_|
   _______|


I am still at the fair. I carry around my backpack. One of the outer
zipper closed compartments contains my Casio watch (it looks like
Fossil though). I meet a customer support person for the Migros M
Budget line. We sit down at a table to talk about my concerns. I
complain to him how their products (the watch) are faulty. The battery
life is limited to a few hours, the wristband made of rubber is easily
broken (I demonstrate in front of him by pulling the wristband apart,
it comes off like chewing gum). It seems that I have even bought the
same watch model for a second time because I liked the design despite
its faults. The M Budget guy is defensive and says that he cannot do
anything for me. I ask him  if there is another way to replace the
watch. I ask him specifically if I can raise my issues "online".
Although I was thinking of a web based customer support, he
misunderstands me and thinks that I am going to make a public rant
about the company on the web.

After the disappointing meeting, I tell myself to buy an analogue
watch with a metal wristband in the future.

I wake up with the memories of these dreams still alive. I fall asleep again.

I am at a different (non-technical) fair now. It is outdoors and the
booths are arranged in C shape:

      _   _
    _|3|_|1|_
   |_| |2| |_|
   |_|     |_|
   |_|     |_|
   |_|     |_|

I am in front of the booth #1. The booth consists only of a large
table, which is divided into two areas. On the right, there are white
candles (randomly squished shapes) and random other white things to be
picked up by the visitors. On the left, there is space to arrange the
white items to form a shape. The shape which must be formed are the
words "Forever ...". Supposedly, the message has something to do with
the fair.

I pick up two (!) candle pieces and try to balance them on top of each
other. The piece on the top has a shape of a disc:
    _____
   <_____>

      +
     | |
     | |
     |_| 

With this constellation, it is impossible to light the candles. I give
up igniting them, let alone contributing them to arrange the requested
shape. There was a general sense that people kept pushing and so

I (we) move on to booth #2. We are facing a wall with a rope. The
lower half of the wall is slanted to ease the climb. My old school
friend P. (junior high school) is up for the challenge and starts
climbing. He is strong enough: he does not use his feet. He pulls
himself up just with his arms in a skilled and fast way. I notice that
there is nothing which would dampen a potential fall. When he reaches
the upper half of the wall, there is a huge vertical dial, like they
are found in a slot machine to display the symbols "BAR", fruits, "7".
Still hanging on to the rope, he starts walking on this dial. I am
distracted for a moment, when I look up again, he has disappeared. To
the right of the dial, there is a door. The door opens and another
person comes out.

     :     __
    _:_   |  |
   | : |  | o|
   | : |  |  |
   |_:_|  |__|
     :
     :
     :        

At booth #3, work colleague S. comes out (of what?). He says he has
eaten proteins. Indeed he looks very athletic now. As if he was a
sports athlete he is wearing white sport goods. What attracts most of
my attention are the white socks which go up to his knees.

I am inside a building now. There is a woman with a British accent
announcing that Garbage will perform tonight. I tell my mother that
this is not possible, they are just trying to attract people. A woman
who looks like Shirley (thick make up, red hair, black dress, black
and white striped sleeves, black high heeled boots) is walking around.
I get excited as I'm starting to believe that Garbage will give a
surprise concert.

A widely stretched booth reveals itself as a CD store (City Disc).
They are selling a lot of Garbage CDs. Many copies of the Version 2.0
album (orange cover) are exposed. The cover looks different though
(Version 2.0 ball). I look at the singles section and find two singles
I have been looking for. They both have a blue cover and have two
songs. The titles I don't recognize, but are typically Garbage. I take
the two singles, which are still wrapped in vinyl, to the counter. I
want to pay the singles, but I don't have my VISA card with me. The
woman tells me that it's okay. Since I have registered for the fair,
they have all the data (obviously including the VISA number). I have
to sign on a pad which digitally scans the signature. I see the
capital letter "C" written on the pad. The woman reminds me that I
should use the plastic pen, not the ball pens with ink (two pens with
ink are lying on the table). Before she even said that I had
understood already and signed with the plastic pen. The capital letter
"C" obviously stemmed from a person who mistakingly used an ordinary
ball pen to sign.

A guy who's last name is "Ball" complains that the digital signature
system does not work. The problem seems to be that the computer
recognizes the term "Ball" as a name of a tool, instead of a person.
By default, the namespace is "Tools" and therefore it is looked up as
"Tools.Ball". The computer (database) is confused, as a tool cannot
purchase any goods. Technology!

I am in Basel. The streets are under water. I drive with my car. It
seems like I am driving on a train track. I then realize that I am on
top of a ramp, which looks like the fountain in front of the Helsana
building. The ramp is not very high (about 30 cm). I feel a bit
embarrassed to get stuck on top of this fountain. The car seems light
enough (100 kg) that I can bring it down myself by carrying with my
arms.

I learned the lesson that a car is not to be driven around when there
is flood: I start carrying it around like a backpack. The car is
becoming lighter and lighter (30 kg).

Some one calls my name. There are three girls: P3., J. (class mates
from junior high school) and S2. (class mate from elementary school).
I greet them, by trying to figure out their names. I have most trouble
with guessing S2.'s name. They all look very aged (40+) and wear a lot
of makeup. S2. looks a bit like Cindy Crawford but without the appeal
of youth.

The girls are all there with their boy friends. Suddenly, we are
surrounded by skin heads. One of the boy friends makes a comment and
is immediately attacked by a skin head. The skin head takes takes his
arm and twists it behind the back. He keeps going until the bones
start to make cracking noises. This is when he says "That's enough!".
10 seconds later, the skin head lets go and reminds him to shut his
mouth next time. Scared of the skin heads, I move on.

I drive again. There is a nice (photo-esque) place in Basel I didn't
know before. The place has waterfalls and emits a mediterranean
ambiance. I try to remember the name of the place ("F...platz").

It seems that I was carrying my car again, so I put down the car. It
is now even lighter (10 kg) and has shrunk even more. It looks like a
ply model car. The red color has bleached and the car body has bumps
and holes in it. I wonder if the Neo-Nazis have done this to my car
while I was distracted. The shape of the car is now closer to an old
Porsche. I try to squeeze something into the trunk, but the car is
really too small now. I can obviously no longer drive in this car.

I wake up.

--- Relations to Reality

Space Shuttle: Swiss is still loosing money and as a consequence will
reduce their fleet from 3x to 2x airplanes.

Space Shuttle demo: At the Expo '05 in Japan, there was a
demonstration of the new super-conducting magnetic railway. There was
a real demonstration of magnets floating in the air, but the
demonstration of the train moving was fake.
 
Watch: I like the design of my watch. It has analogue needles and has
a LCD background with Chinese characters counting the seconds. It uses
two different batteries for the analogue and digital part. As the
batteries wear out independently from each other, it feels like the
batteries have to be constantly changed. Wristbands which are made of
rubber or leather I must exchange at least once every two years with
any watch I wear. I don't like wristbands made of metal.

Migros M Budget (cheap product line of a big grocery store chain) guy:
Yesterday at noon, I was disturbed by two aggressive sales people in
dark suites from Sunrise (cell phone operator). The man talking to me
was not sympathetic. The M Budget guy looked exactly like him. I went
shopping afterwards at Migros and found that the new employee suits
looked better than the old ones, but were still ugly (bright orange on
dark orange). Even a dress themed with the M Budget style would look
better. I bought a new M Budget product (mustard).

Candles: P2. had some in his apartments which his kids had made. One
of the candles was partly cut open.

P: He used to like climbing.

Proteins: C. Has bought vitamins (bargain) in the states. Lance
Armstrong is accused to have used doping. It has been always obvious
to me.

Woman with British accent: Met this British woman (lives in Neuchatel)
in the train on Wednesday evening.

Garbage: They blew off the UK/Europe tour scheduled for autumn.
Somebody on the mailing list was wondering if it was due to the
flooding.

Garbage Singles: There are 2 to 3 new singles from the album, but I
haven't found them at City Disc or anywhere else yet. I was too lazy
to order them, which is not like me.

Paying without VISA: The people from Sunrise were taking a lot of my
personal data, how much I spend on phone bills and so on. Yesterday, I
had bought a shirt at C&A with VISA, which I had to sign. Nowadays,
very often you can enter the PIN code and they don't ask for the
signature anymore. When I sign, they compare the signature against the
one on the card. My signature has simplified a lot over time and I
keep wondering how they come to the conclusion that they are the same.

Tools: Our group at work is named "UI and Tools".

Streets under water: Currently, various places in Switzerland have
been flooded as a consequence of heavy continuous rain in the last few
days.

Fountain in front of Helsana building: I keep looking at it, trying to
decide whether I like it or not. I guess it's better than nothing.

Car: I have seen another silver gray Celica with the Japanese writing
"Oden" on it. P2. commented last night on the fact that my car beeps
when put into reverse gear.

Backpack: I bought a Puma sports bag last weekend. It can be carried
like a backpack, but it's not that comfortable.

3 girls: The only one I liked was S.

Old women: The latest Wochenblatt (weekly newspaper) runs the title
story "Women over 50". P2. pointed it out to me the night before.

"F...platz": I learned on Friday which street "Feldbergstrasse" in Basel is.

Waterfalls: C. was in Yosemite and showed me pictures of the waterfalls.

Ply model car: I was thinking of buying a ply model of my car. I
haven't bought it because I already have the car. Why do I need a
model of it? I'm not that obsessed about my car.

State of my car: My father had said it still looks as good as new.