I had a dream-mare...

...this morning which was a bit strange. I've had similar ones before, so I just wanted to see how familiar they seem to people (blogs can be research tools too, you know).

I had woken previously and drifted back to sleep. This is something I revel in when I can. This weekend is the first weekend I've spent in Leeds in a long time and it's been lovely and peaceful. I've had time to book all my tickets etc for San Francisco, go food shopping, tidy up; generally be domesticated then, as well as get a few hours of work in. Brilliant. Anyway, I likely felt guilty at having slept in for another hour or so and was probably trying not to let myself sleep too deeply. In my dream I was in bed, as normal, trying to get up. But I could neither move nor see myself. Firstly it was just my hands that were invisible, but this increased slightly throughout the dream. I was trying so hard to get out of bed and move to check some stuff in the flat and see whether I could rouse myself from this state, but alas, nothing could be done. The dream was quite lengthy. I also couldn't see; I was trying to reach for my specs but they made no difference. This is something reasonably common in my dreams.

When I woke I was alert, so I had very likely been in REM sleep. Maybe the lack of being able to see reflected this. I was trying to wake so was reasonably lucid, but clearly dreaming. I just wondered if anyone else was familiar with (a) not being able to see in their dreams and (b) this strange dream-wake state (when waking as opposed to falling asleep)?

Thought would be much appreciated.

I'm off to see whether it constitutes a nightmare or a dream. It was pretty scary.

Moon. xxx

(Incidentally one source would say it's a nightmare as it was more of a situation and a sensation (typical of stage 4 reports) than a narrative (typical of REM reports). I think that's crap. nightmares describe emotional content rather than sleep stage mentation. A better source says it is a nightmare, largely because it was so emotional it woke me. However it's the being on the brink of sleep-wake that's of interest. I'm not sure whether it was the emotionality or the general state that woke me. Help me out, someone, please! Are these dreammares common?

Whilst I'm at the toilet, I'll just...

...take some pictures of the latest wave of vending machines for your perusal. And what have we here? Nothing less than a veritable banquet of products.



Let's look at them a little more closely...

#1
First up, in case you quite fancy giving it a go with the bloke who works at the garage that you've visited for a toilet stop; wipe on pheromones.





The first time I saw these it didn't state that they were human pheromones, but this one, thankfully, does. I still don't know whose pheromones they extracted though. Are pheromones generic in their attractiveness? Or if you happen to be wiping on the 'mones of a vile tramp of a girl who is larger than life (fat), fond of the white mini skirt and keeps her Lambert and Butlers in her pram, what exactly are you going to attract? Other than an alsatian? Call me boring, but I have no intentions of testing these out to see. I would encourage other people to, though.

Assuming success with the 'mones, you may well want to check out machines #2 and 3.



#2




How exciting! A real interesting range of shapes to choose from. My apologies that the picture isn't totally clear. I was a little concerned that the cleaner would hear my camera working whilst I was in the toilet, so I had to be hasty. I'm not sure if it's visible, but the thing that concerned me was the text at the bottom. I had clearly misunderstood the purpose of the exciters. "Insert £1 coin". Surely it won't fit. I also like the warning that other shapes may be available. I bet that means that the interesting shapes are all bananas. Speaking of which...



#3



Captain Condom! Assuming that the Cpt stands for Captain, of course. As opposed to capitulated. Or captured. Capstan. Capability. Cap full of terd. The interesting thing here is that (see text at the base of the machine) the buyer is meant to peruse the selection available. All I can see available is a cartoon condom with a coil wrapped around him (the new double Dutch, perhaps) and a banana on its back.

I left the garage having purchased some chewing gum and a bottle of water.

Moon. xxx

skef fest

Look at this - worktime blogging!

Prompted by a discussion with Akira, prompted by some funny sounding nonwords that I made up for an experiment, prompted by a moment of conscientiousness, I have been thinking about some insults that were popular at school. The range of them is quite impressive. Not only do they all seem to refer to the same kind of thing (a person who's a bit shit and rough), but there are regional varieties-a-plenty.

The main one from the Shire, that I can recall, is skef. Everyone at some point was skeffy at my school. It wasn't a great school in fairness (and it's worsened - it's very "below average" in its achievements, these days. Although you can easily and cheaply get hold of a vast array of drugs) but that's not the point. This word's popularity should have easily earned it a place in the Oxford English.

Similar kinds of people were also skanky, crusty, and smeggy (I wonder if that was because they smelled of eggs? I doubt it; these words likely weren't so carefully constructed). Munter and minger came a little later; by 6th form I guess. However things happened earlier in the South. You guys all had mobile phones at least a couple of years before us. And that's not an exaggeration. So you may well have had munters before we did.

I warmly invite you to share your regional insults. A friend of mine was very amused at how the Spastic Society changed its name to SCOPE, not least in an attempt to wipe out "spakka" from playground insult popularity. So what happened? Scopee became quickly became a favourite. So, I only want PC ones in my skeffy database!

Moon. xxx