the price of a generation
2007-09-24 - 10:27 p.m.

Dream. section8. the name of the dream lights up with green letters on a black background, offcentered to display the left side of the 'screen'. there were words just before the title came up but ive forgotten them. it starts which two women clothed in futuristic tight black suits, lying on a bed. their legs are off to the same side of the bed and their belly buttons are not covered by their clothing. both have balck hair and dark eyes, looking so much alike they could easily pass as sisters (they are actually clones, one older than the other, the newest "line" of agent currently in use by section8). as they chat (maybe something about their lives being a mostly lonely affair, it wasnt really important what they were talking about because they were wearing tight leather pants) the younger one is fiddling with her belt buckle, which contains some sort of tiny gyroscopic device (the introduction of this device from the older to the younger was a sidenote in the conversation, the younger was fiddling with it and the older said something like "you'll get used to it, its just a different type of balance than you're used to"). the conversation gets a bit more intense (yet still irrelavent next to the palstic/leather) and the older one says something to the effect of "would you like to discuss this in private?". whith a nod, they both get off the bed and head to the corner. neither girl changes her phyisical position until they get there, so they are basically walking around with their bodies still positioned as if they were lying on the side of the bed, until they get to the corner, where they use their stomach muscles to "recalibrate" the gyroscopic decives, by standing up (gyroscopic belt buckles do not talk, in fact no one said the word "recalibrate" at all). they use some sort of device so they can "talk in private". the style of the device itself is irrelavant. though you can see both women clearly, you cannot hear what they are saying and their faces do not move. it seems as though this "private conversation" can only be done in a certain location in the apartment. zoom out through the full-wall window they are standing next to for a look of the city. "KEY: high security apartments" is a company that has skyscrapers for rent at very high prices. they have one-way tinted windows of bulletproof glass, helicopter pad on the roof, armored escorts, etc, etc. its like being in the witness protection program of the future, except that its basically offered to anyone regardless of wether they work in the government of the mafia, as long as they can afford it. i got the feeling that most of the section8 employees live in these sort of buildings. zoom in to a new customer signing in, you dont see his face, just the back of his head and a lot of shots of his feet, black plastic/leather coat, and his one bit of traveling gear, a black plastic/leather bag. the woman escorting to his room is in stark contrast to the dark steeliness of the rest of the building and city. she has been explaining the mission of KEY, and even cherrily says "the pool is temporarily off limits". she opens the door for him and lets him into his room, he stops her from turning on the lights. the room is identical to the room of the section8 employees we met earlier. he plops down on the chair, takes out a console game system (forgot the name of the system but it was a SONY product, "emersis" or something like that) and begins to play in the dark. you still havent seen his face. the scene changes back to the younger section8 employee (you should know by now this is the main character), talking to another undercover section8 employee (black man a couple years older than herself, maybe the same age as the older version of her, and definately another former "line" of section8 agent/clones. his chasis, however, has been declassified and is now available for other uses, but you dont realise this until later when the main character comments on it as a police officer is seen walking in the city (with the same chasis), while the main character and her coworker are eating at an outside restaraunt (he seems undisturbed by it, considering other versions of his chasis as "just like twins. some bad, some good. but all just like me.")). the conversation this time, however, is not being monitored by KEY because KEY only monitors their own property (its not a federal-level entity, but just another business in the private sector). the section8 employees seem to be working some sort of front job as pastry chefs the black man leans casually around the register and the main character kneeds some dough while they talk. no one comes into the pastry shop. they are talking, in this case, about work, which is basically their lives, and how the main character has recently gotten promoted. she is worried that she is "not ready" for her new responsibility, because basically she is promotoed on the basis of her age. each clone goes through the same training program and if they dont die due to some accident in training, they pass. she is uncomfortable because no one "fails" the training, most everything is learned from older versions of your own clone (the introduction of the gyroscopic belt buckle, though trivial, was one such training lesson, its "an outdated piece of technology" anyways, the lesson was supposed to be in "adapting to NEW technologies"). he says something to the effect of "you know you cant drive anymore". this comes as a shock to her, and she begins to strangilate the pastries. one of section8s jobs, evidently, is to provide escort driving services to sensitive personel, in the same way the KEY employees provide this service to the section8 employees (yes, of course she gets to drive later on in the dream, when a "situation" occurs and the KEY employee that is driving the vehicle is found "incompitent" so she takes over for a short time). "you think they'd take that sort of risk? at this point, you're more valuable than that. they can't afford to lose you in a traffic accent, you cost too much." he said some other stuff too, like "its just part of the cycle, later you will get demoted regardless of what you accomplished. so dont let the promotion go to your head." (hes obviously a little bitter/jealous, but he was younger than she was, when he was that rank (which might have been one of the problems with his chasis?)). the mysterious man from before, the one playing video games, evidently has some sort of futuristic sk8board. he turns off the video games and heads downtown with his sk8board and a wad of cash, to place a bet on himself. there are some 8 kids in the "sk8er p4rk" and they describe the limits of the race to him. of course they think this guy is too old to be sk8ing (they move a lot faster than skateboards (20 kph-ish) and are sort of self-propelled, not by jet turbines in the back, but some sort of gravitational force) and so they let him compete with them. what follows resembles the charriot race from Ben Hur, with the older man killing/dissabling many of the kids instead of actually going faster than them. there are some 4 kids left at the end of the race,and he takes the money and they basically become his henchmen for a "project" he has in mind. sort of like the foot soldiers in the ninja turtles movies, he brainwashes the kids to think he is some sort of fatherly figure, and teaches them that the world is out to get them and he is their protector. we later find out that this mysterious man is a "rejected chasis", a failed attempt as a line of cloned agents. he personally believes that the cloning process has Nothing to do with the program he went through, and that given the right set of stimli and punishment/reinforcement he can teach anyone to be a skilled agent (maybe at some point later in the film he is found reading "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" by B. F Skinner?). his plans, however are much more diabolicle. the future of warfare seems to be founded on two principles, "effient and cheap". he has found that children make the best front-line fodder because they dont need fancy armor or weapons to be effective. an older person, facing off with a child in a me-or-you situation will often hesitate. that hesitation is often enough time for the child-agent to be effective. most of the fight scenes are small-scale inner city style, "camoflauge" is not green or brown, but a random assortment of casual clothes, automatic weapons, and unassuming glances. EndDream. it sort of remined me of a cross between Fifth Element, Dark city, and the Ghost in the Shell series.

their original names were smack, crack, and daddy-pop. although the Kellogs marketing analysis showed that the names were popular with the target audience, the mothers of the target audience were a bit of a bottleneck.

Dream. Mr Crane. Step-mother and i were at some sort of conference on a university campus. i had nothing to do with it, and she wasnt in the dream other than a means to get to and from the campus. i was standing outside the campus church, waiting for someone else. there was a sort of log burning there, one of those things that burns all day every day, as a memorial or a reminder of something or other. i walked into the church, where the candles were burning, and one by one i put them out by thinking about it. i was testing the theory, proving it to myself. then i went outside, and put out the log (from left to right). and there he was, Ichabod Crane, played by none other than the old man from back to the future, fake white hair and all. "Mr Crane, Mr Crane" i said and ran after him, trying to catch up to him and explain my idea in the short time he undoubably had between teaching and board meetings. i mentioned the work of another scientist, who had proved the existence of induced voltage, and said something to the effect of "what if you can induce Anything? density, inertia, flexibility?". i was folowing him up some stairs now, and he went through a door that was oddly unsymetrical, three-quarters of the doorway sloped up to the peak, and the other quarter sloped down, but the part that sloped down didnt have a door at all (obviously the hinges were on the part that sloped up). he said only one thing to me, "thats a very interesting idea", and shut that door behind himself as he went though. in afterthought, the construction of the door was such that it could not be shut. as i turned and headed back down the stairs, it was entirely possible for me to see and hear everything on the other side of the door (he continued down the hall), but it was the action of shutting the door that made me stop following him. it even occurred to me that he might have walked halfway across the campus, out of his way, to use this exact door for such a purpose. i explained, in a defeated tone, my idea to a woman on my way back down the stairs, and it made me wish id practiced explaining the idea more because the more i talked about it the more i developed the theory. the theory evolved until a point where i was describing all of physics with fields, some of which had a huge effect on others, and some of which could seemlessly pass through others, depending on the type of field. as we walked outside she got into her 2000+ gold (dodge?) charger and drove off, i walked up to a certain point, just beyond some passing traffic, one of those blue and red general use balls (was being used as a soccerball) flew across the street, i bounced it off my chest, back to the person chasing after it. i walked to some other point and someone was tossing an important doccument, some thesis, frisbe style from one person to another, and i attempted to grab it as it fell, for i knew that the reciever would not catch it. in doing so i stood between the thrower and the reciever, and missed, and it fell to the ground. the reciever then berated me for having stood there, as if it was me that was to blame, for the thesis being dropped. End Dream.

all the paperwork is done, the silver cross is in the mail, postmarked september 28th. i may be headed off to basic training as soon as october 28th.

Dream. the druid and the blacksmith. there was a cartoony girl in the woods, wrapped in a grass woven blanket, sleeping on the ground. part animal part spirit, at times she is running though the woods and is more spirit and less animal, at other times she is being hunted by a predator and is more animal. the predator is green and stringy, like a large green insect with a pointy curved beak. she scares it off, but it bite her. poisoned and weak, she stumbles to a hut near the woods she lives in. there is a clearing and in it is a house similar to the home of the seven little dwarves in snow white. she passes out at the entrange to the clearing, and the blacksmith brings her inside. the blacksmith is a slightly shorter girl with a large hammer and even larger smile, also rather cartoony, also part spirit. when the druid wakes up, she is in the blacksmiths hut, the blacksmith is mostly spirit, working at something the druid can't see. its a dagger, made of a chunk of amber that had belonged to the druid. the amber stone, to one girl, was simply a beutiful stone, to the other it was a useful material. but the dagger itself is both useful and beautiful. the blacksmith finishes crafting the dagger by getting a certain item (a small yellow ball with an icon on it) from crafting spirits that live in the area (normally such spirits have to be found, but this time they come willingly, each advertising their own certain items, trying to most please the "pretty girl"). they look sort of like flame boy (TM) from world industries (TM), except they are purple and see-through, and the flames at the top of their heads are wider, wide enough for the blacksmith to stick her hand inside and pull out the certain item. though the blacksmith could see the certain items inside the crafting spirits, she drew one while closing her eyes, to make it random. i didnt see which icon was on the certain item that was used, but it certainly added a magical quality to the dagger. the blacksmith gives the dagger to the druid so that she can protect herself from monsters in the woods. they spend some time together until the druid is fully healed, and for a moment their spirits overlap and form a complete spirit. there is a sense of completeness. then the druid has to leave, becasue if her spirit is rooted too long it will die. such is nature. she profusely thanks the blacksmith and vows to return, not realizing the gift that she has given to the blacksmith. the blacksmith had been lonely, and after a time returns to working with the lifeless iron and fire. End Dream.

Sir#1: kind sir, could you help me practice my jujitsu?
Sir#2: i guess so...what is it?
Sir#1: its a form of martial arts in which a 50kg person tosses a 100kg person by use of simple physics and leverage.
Sir#2: so, its basically the art of beating up fat asses.
Sir#1: in a manner of speaking...
Sir#2: so why doesnt fatso learn jujitsu too, instead of just being the dummy all the time? then it would be "jujitsu, the art of a 100k person tossing a 50k person really, really far, by applying physics".
Sir#1: duh. then it would be called sumo wrestling. jujitsu is for people that want to kick ass without losing their figure.

it's a different game every time you play!