Alligators Everywhere! Dream 20181007

I am on vacation in the deep south with my wife. We are traveling in Florida or perhaps somewhere around New Orleans. We have a big van that I think we can sleep in although sometimes it feels like we are with a larger family group. I am not sure if it is family from the area or people we traveled with.

We are at my wife's sister's house. I think it isn't one of her real sisters but seems like a composite. Or a niece. She has about three children, a  husband, and a little black poodle dog.

My deceased brother is also with us. My wife takes some family members somewhere, not sure where while me and my brother stay to watch fireworks, or some other event.

I notice through the kitchen door that leads to a body of water that there a many alligators maybe 100 feet away. My brother and I, we head out the front door to watch the event. I wonder if we brought our chairs with us because there isn't anywhere to sit.  Walking out to where other people are I see baby alligators everywhere with exaggerated golden teeth.

I go back into the house and look out the kitchen door and I see the alligators making a charge to the house. I see the black poodle outside and I start to open the door to let the dog out and the dog wants to go out but alligators are almost at the door.

I run out the front door and think about warning people because the kitchen is parallel to the front door. I look just past the car port and I lion is there and runs away as soon as I look.

And that is where I wake up more or less feeling fear, like a nightmare. It is about 8:00 AM and I just decide to get up.

The Cat-Eating Doll Dream 20180902

I am outside reading when a neighborhood cat approaches me. It is a very friendly orange cat and I start petting him.

For whatever reason I move inside only it is the basement of the house I grew up in. I am sitting with the cat in my lap, stroking it. Across from me is a little girl, or what I thought was a little girl at first. It was about three feet tall with curly blond hair but when I look into its eyes, it has plastic bulging eyes that look like a hypnotic wheel.

I turns out we are in some sort of contest. The doll asks me questions about the cat. Somehow this turns into I have to let the cat go and find a hiding place. If the doll finds the cat's hiding place, it gets to eat the cat. There is some sort of time limit but I do not remember what.

I protest, this sounds awful but somehow the doll gets me to relent. I put the cat down, realizing it isn't even my at and the cat has never been in this environment before. Regardless, the cat starts walking away and enters the laundry room.

The doll sits with a very creepy smile on its lips watching the cat disappear into the laundry room. After a while the doll and its entourage gets up and starts into the laundry room looking for the cat. I see the cat leave the laundry room and go into the kitchen which connects to the furnace room.

The doll and its group spends a lot of time in  the laundry room looking for the cat. I decide to go into the furnace room and try to rescue the cat when two other people show up. In the dream I know who they are and they are playing some sort of fantasy play and I am very, very annoyed with them because I think they will give the cat's hiding place away.

After a few minutes the cat comes out of the furnace room as if nothing is wrong. The doll and its group is still searching the laundry room. I scoop the cat up and walk past the laundry room hiding the cat as much as possible and head upstairs to let the cat free.

From the Pile Episode 2: Justice League International Annual #3 by Keith Griffen and J. M. DeMatteis

This week I picked DC Comics Justice League International(JLI) Annual #3 by Keith Griffen and J. M. DeMatteis. One reason I chose this title is I will probably be a little Marvel-centric for the next few videos and I wanted to throw a little love to the die-hard DC Fans.

And you have to be a die-hard DC fan for this one, at least the main story. Around the World with the JLI takes up 33 pages of this book and nearly nothing happens. The story opens on the beautiful Pacific island of Kooey Kooey Kooey where a character named Herb is trying to convince his chief to allow the JLI to have an embassy on their island as a way of keeping the Soviets and Americans from attempting to establish a base there because Kooey Kooey Kooey is strategically located. What its strategic importance is, we aren't told. We are only told we are somewhere in the South Pacific.

Herb is the uptight sort while the chief likes to make dumb jokes and tell Herb to lighten up. The chief thinks inviting the JLI to have a base on the island is a bad idea as it will attract super villains, aliens, inter-dimensional monsters, and reporters. Herb tries to assure the chief that the JLI are very busy and will probably only visit the island rarely.

The chief takes it under consideration and after a couple of pages, decides to send Herb to speak to the JLI and offer them an embassy on the island. Herb is suddenly, "Why me?! I don't want to leave the island, it's so nice here! I spent four excruciating years at Brooklyn University," and I'm sighing in frustration because we just spent 2 or 3 pages of Herb arguing for and then worrying the chief will turn his proposal down. Don't make a suggestion if you don't want to take the lead on it, or have someone in mind to take the lead on it!

Next we cut to the JLI headquarters where the JLI have been summoned to go on a tour of all the JLI's embassies in different countries around the world for reasons that are never completely explained. Blue Beetle isn't happy because he has a hot date. Booster Gold jibes him that it is with Beetle's Aunt Millie being allowed out of the home for the weekend. It isn't funny and as the book progresses nearly every member of the JLI makes an Aunt Millie joke that is just as unfunny.

The whole feel of the book is like that of a 1970s Saturday Morning Cartoon and I could practically hear the lame laugh track in my head as bad joke after bad joke is made. If I wasn't reading this book to make a video, I would probably have put it aside forever.

As you see in my video the cover looks really fun and it shows snapshots of JLI members having fun in different countries around the world. Guy Gardner was even shown on the cover even though he, Batman and somebody called Captain Atom are excused from the tour, although Captain Atom makes an appearance later in the story.

The whole story is about Herb trying to catch up with the JLI who are always one location ahead because, I guess in 1989 they had no means of communication.

The artwork is the only redeeming quality of this story, the faces are especially well drawn and convey emotions extremely well. But in the end it is 33 pages of bad jokes, anti-adventure, and unhappy characters.

The backup feature is called The Man I Never Was (also by Griffen and Demateis), on the other hand, is 8 pages of pure comic book joy. This is a story that features Martian Manhunter, aka J'onn J'onzz, who is seeking to avenge the death of his former partner and comes to Gotham to start pushing around low-level mob guys hoping to shake up the higher-ups in the organization because he believes his partner was killed for investigating the mob.  Martian Manhunter is soon joined by Batman because nobody beats up low-level hoodlums in Gotham without Batman's permission!

The great thing about this story for a not very long time DC fan such as myself is that this  gives the reader deep insght into J'onn J'onzz's character. I think all the stuff I've read with J'onn J'onzz is the post-Identity Crisis stories and the little bit he was in Injustice: Gods Among Us, and none of those stories really go into his character that much. Probably Brightest Day is the story I've read with the most character building for Martian Manhunter but I don't think I had any idea he worked as a cop for a few years. But the way Griffen and DeMatteis let you into J'onn J'onzz's head is by having him focus on Batman and all the trauma and Bruce Wayne experienced as a boy and while J'onn J'onzz is telling us about Batman we are learning about J'onn. It is really quite inspired story telling. I'm not sure what happened with the main feature but these eight pages and the cover art are worth the price of the whole book.

If you happen to pick this book up or remember it from back in the day, let me know what you think in the comments section down below. And please support this blog by visiting my YouTube channel Super Comic Fun Time! and liking and subscribing, and if you are planning on shopping at Amazon, please consider using my affiliate link here which links right to Amazon's Comic Books and Graphic Novels and shop from there.

You can even pick up a copy of Justice League International Annual #3 if you so desire. I do think the back up story is well worth the read if you can find it for a good price and not have to pay more in shipping than  the price of the book.

This book also looks like it will be a part of the upcoming Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 1 which is due out on October 17, 2017. Based on my reading of this Annual #3, I don't feel compelled to get this volume, but if you are a fan from this time or you know there are much better JLI stories than this, maybe there are a lot more gems scattered out throughout this omnibus. If you are a reader back from the day or a fan of this era of comics, let me know what you think because I really did like, no love the back up feature in this annual. Comment below or on my video, link up above.

Suddenly Moving Dream 20170930

I dream I am living in a very nice house with hardwood floors. I have dreamed this house before, entering it in winter in one dream. I do not know if I recorded that dream.

In this dream, I suddenly find myself moving and for whatever reason I am moving alone. Everything is on me to pack up the house. I call my mom wondering if she knows someone with a truck because I have to be out pretty quickly. This leads me to understand that there is some issue with money. I am moving to another state and I have to rent a moving truck which, in my mind, is going to be very expensive.

I also do not have any boxes or tissue paper for wrapping delicates. In the dream, I come across a few religious relics from my childhood that I feel like transferring to the new house. One is sort of a stained glass piece and the other is a holy candle. I don't feel much connection to my Catholic upbringing but these relics seem like okay things to take.

Then there are pieces of furniture, a lot of it is authentic furniture but this is a black walnut finished box that isn't very interesting looking and seems like it is artificial.

While I am packing I suddenly realize that I will be selling this house and where I am moving too, somewhere in Kentucky or Tennessee, the housing is about 1/3 of the price of this house. In my mind, my house is worth something like 330,000 and I will only need to use something like 100,000 to buy a new home.

But there is also time pressure and I feel myself going into a panic attack while I am packing.  This is when Scott Adams, the famous cartoonist and persuasion expert, arrives with my roommate who is a woman that isn't anyone I know but seems to be a composite of several women I have known over the course of my life.  Scott and this woman sit down in a window sill and they are eating ice cream and calmly and with a feeling of a sense of humor, watching me pack and panic.

I call out, not quite shouting, "I need some words of encouragement right now! I need to feel calm." And the woman and Scott Adams start intoning affirmations, "You are calm, Douglas." "Everything is working out in your favor, Douglas." While they are doing this, in the dream, I had been in a frenzy and the dream itself reflected this where everything was blurring but as they continue, I start to calm down.

I start to calm down a little bit and I notice them looking at my stuff, I ask them, "Is something wrong." And they make a statement like, "All of this stuff is yours, and when you got rid of a piece of furniture, you went to the store and bought a new one without even consulting your roommate."

I suddenly realize, I am moving and I didn't even think about my roommate and where she was going to live and that, in fact, she was my tenant, since I owned this house and I wondered how long she would need to live here while I moved and should I leave some furniture for her? There was also some thought of the religious relics, where they actually okay to take to the new house?

Then suddenly, everything seemed to resolve itself in an instant and as we three were realizing the resolution, I woke up, actually smiling, I think.

Since then I have been doing some work and I have been feeling a bit frenzied since then. I was just about to go and do my daily affirmations when I felt compelled to write out this dream first.

I'm just going to publish this right now without any proofreading because I feel that will capture most the spirit of the dream and when I look at this later today I will make any minor corrections and maybe add a picture or two. Especially if I come across anything that reminds me of the relics as that and Scott Adams' voice intoning affirmations are the things I remember most.

I also thought about dreams I had prior to moving into my current home. I had a whole series of dreams of coming home to my apartment, finding the door open and a bunch of stuff leading away from the door and I also had several dreams about moving into a new house.

So since I am working very hard on starting a marketing business right now, I am taking this dream as an omen that I am moving in the right direction.

I also realize I have Scott Adams' book in my Audible Library, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life and maybe I should move that up my playlist?

Since I'm mentioning Scott Adams, his new book Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter comes out October 31, 2017

Spoilers: The Mystery of Doctor Doom on Battleworld

The Mystery of Doctor Doom on Battleworld

When the Fantastic Four, well, in this case, Reed Richards, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm, since Sue Richards nee Storm is pregnant at the time this story takes place and is left back on earth, first get to Battleworld it is revealed that they have witnessed Doctor Doom’s death and they don’t quite know what to make of his presence on Battleworld. One theory is that Doom is only a simulacra created from by the Beyond from the memories of Reed Richards, et al.

Within the books contained in the Battleworld Box Set, we do not learn of Doom’s fate until near the end of Secrete Wars II in Fantastic Four #288 entitled Full Circle.

Doctor Doom was in combat with a herald of Galactus called Terrax the Tamer. Terrax fuses Doom’s armor, rendering him immobile and then Terrax fights Galactus’ first herald, the Silver Surfer. That battle ends with both titans falling back to earth as a giant fireball that atomizes both Doom’s and Terrax’s bodies.

But Doom had already transferred his consciousness into that of innocent bystander, Norm McArthur. In issue 288, Doom has captured the Fantastic Four, which at this point consists of Reed, Sue, Johnny and the She-Hulk, who became a member of the FF when Ben Grimm stayed behind on Battleworld.

Doom is performing a magic ritual in order to call back his body which has been rendered into stardust but he finds he lacks sufficient power so he reaches out with his mind to find an even greater power to use when he summons the Beyonder. The Beyonder wants to kill Doom for Doom’s impertinence, this being very near the end of Secret Wars II and the Beyonder is pissed off. Reed talks him out if it pointing out that this is the point in time where the Beyonder plucked Doom from in order to set the events of Battleworld and that killing Doom now could have very negative consequences that the Beyonder may not even be able to survive being that he has made himself a part of the timeline.

The Beyonder concurs, recreates Doom’s body for him, and then hurtles him back in time so the events of the first Secret War can transpire.

Afterward, the Beyonder leaves and Reed rushes everyone out of the Latverin embassy surmising that post-Secret Wars Doom may make an appearance at any moment.

This leads into the final issue of Secret Wars II.

Rare Lucid Dream

20160802 Dream

Conditions: Last night was a Leo new moon

After about an hour of sleep, my reflux woke me up a little after 11:30PM.

I was up for about another 30 minutes watching YouTube as some of my sleepiness had dispersed.

Finally I fell asleep.

I dream I am looking at flowers from a distance. It is like someone else is there with me and I am talking to them, or perhaps only talking to myself, when suddenly I become aware that I am dreaming.

I say something like, “OMG! I'm having a lucid dream! Okay, don't blow it, just relax, find your hands,” and I look down and see the back of a hand, it might have been my dream companion or it might have been my own hand, only much older, 20-30 years older.

Then I look forward again and the flowers are still there and then I look back at my hands but when I look up again, half the dreamscape is gone, sort of crystallized. I either see myself or another dream companion half-crystallized and I realize I am losing the dream so I say to myself, “Okay, I'm losing the dream, I'm going to come out of it.” And I woke up rather easily, no fear, but a great feeling of energy. I decided to leave the dream because I thought it might lead to sleep paralysis if I didn't come all the way out of the dream and then I would be afraid.

Prior to sleeping, I did notice some activity in my root and sacral chakras and I did my best to let the energy flow without spasming, but I did spasm somewhat.

I also think the reason I was seeing flowers, and I seemed to be seeing them from some sort of covered bridge, an old fashioned wooden bridge, because we had watched a show on Monet on Netflix on Raiders of the Lost Art. This also put in mind to want to see the mini-series about the impressionists from 2006 and when I was reviewing the dream in my mind prior to writing this, I came to the supposition that I may have been soul traveling to Monet's garden that had been restored and open to the public in the 1980s.

Spider-man Silver on Black

Okay, not that almost everything isn't a first for me at this point but this is a first on several levels.

Last week when I visited the art store and was going through their clearance paint, I came across a tube of silver and suddenly mind mind was awash in visions of silver on black paintings.

I think the first vision I had was for Daredevil sort of three images with Daredevil facing in three different directions.

Also Spider-Man was another idea.

After I painted the painting paper black, I got stuck in what to do.  Other than the superhero idea, I thought maybe just having a partial skyline like that I observed in Chicago.  So I painted it black on Tuesday night and then let it sit to dry but then I got stuck on what to attempt.

Luckily, I was reading a comic book series at the time called Secret War from my Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars Battleworld Box Set and this particular series had different heroes set against a mostly black background.  I pretty much had decided on either Daredevil or Spider-Man and in the end, the Spider-Man seemed like the best one to go with.

So this is also the first action scene I have drawn or painted.  In some ways, I'm happy with this painting.  I guess for my skill level, it is recognizable and the silver paint ended up being harder to work with than I anticipated.  It was a bit thicker than the other colors I had worked with, but since I was going with a simple design, I could paint over lines or too thick of lines with the black.

Here's the cover art that was the basis for this painting: