Elizabeth
Oct 21st

I grandmother,
more?

no G

Sniper,

jilopy


I'm not sure how it started, or if it was 2 dreams or one however...

I was at a table surrounded by many people and it was infused with the air of a shady casino, and felt as though there was a crowd around a roulette table, to which I was a part of. However it was track car racing of sorts. The cars were roughly 1/18th size, yet the track seemed much smaller. There were elaborate scales and self correction devices to keep the action going. On second thought, it could have been a hologram. For some reason it seemed like miniature banger racing.

The crowd I thought, turned out to only be a few and after the race there was one person across the table who won 20,000usd. The dealer/bookie said he'd get his money soon, that he had to send it away as to make sure everything was on the up and up, something about if he hypothetically lost and all. The winner was very understanding as all winners probably are. There was a joke in there about his wife, and what she would have done had he lost. I took it that he had a addiction to gambling, and that this could have been his way out, to fiscal redemption, but he was going to some how get ripped off.

I looked to my left and sitting in a stool at the same table, a bit hunched over with her head against her hand looking at the action was Elizabeth. Right next to me and I when I saw her, I was shocked. As many times before, I had to catch my breath, I forgot how to breath. She rolled her eyes as I made a motion, as though don't run off, I won't freak you out. She was aggravated by my hunt for her. (so it seemed). She had lost a lot of her accent (which I loved so dearly). I got in to small mundane conversation, everything I could do to hold myself back from grabbing her and hugging her, my long lost best friend.

I asked her how long she was going to stay and she said October 21st. I became internally histatic, that there was hope we could hang out, talk , closure. For some reason it seemed like almost a month, although it was November (or at lest felt like November).

I then looked across the room and saw my Grandmother (mother side) walking across the room and turned my head and said "you don't know me".

I then went up to my Grandmother and hugged her and by this time she was already at the table. I was on the verge of expecting waves and waves of family, however I think I only caught a glimpse of my Mother at the door. I told my Grandmother I was keeping an eye on I who showed up at the table, facing away. In reality I think he's 2 or 3, in the dream he was much younger. I told her I wanted to be sure he didn't win too much. After all so much money at a young age would change him, for the worse most likely.

There was something about a back room, then I think I was in a apartment (mine?)

I was on the first floor, the walls were a odd shade of green. It felt very 70's, and it was dingy, perhaps even filthy, but not messy. Outside a window, a few hundred yards away I saw a roof top sniper and two armed men that said sniper had dispatched, heading my way fast. I felt as though I had been through this a million times. I went over to the door, moving with a bit of urgency, yet confident I could take out all 3 would be assassins.

As I searched through my pockets I found various items, it was actually like a video game in that I had massive items on my person, yet relatively normal pockets. Eventually I became a bit frantic and found out there was no gun. I could not win this fight.

There was a old 40's-60's modified pick up at my side window just driving around, I assumed it was there's but it was moving back and forth, in odd motions as though the driver was drink. There was a dumpster as well. I Then grabbed the top of the window ledge , pulled my self up and swung my self forward in a semi frantic pace. The window may have been open but the screen was a bear. It was all very ungraceful. I thought that perhaps the truck was trying to run me over, but at 5 mph. I grabbed on to the back, a wooden hold , with long wooden planks, dried out and coming apart. The back filled with what looked like the remnants of a shopping cart belonging to a homeless person. Out came a disheveled woman with white hair, a denim jacket, and a bottle of liquor. I yelled drive!, I told her I would pay her and she took off...at a very very slow rate of speed. For some reason I could not get myself in the back of said truck so I just hung outside of it. I looked back and by this time we were several block away I saw police units moving in and arresting my would be assassins. This was bitter sweet, as if they were connected, they would be out and back after me soon enough, if they were not I would never have a chance to question them and most likely have law enforcement after me as well.

We then pulled a right and there was another police car on a angle, on the sidewalk at the entrance of a parking lot. It looked to be of a different municipality than those I saw arresting the others. It was black and white impala, lights going nuts. I was preparing my story hoping it wouldn't pull us over. Then I realized my driver was drunk.

So as the truck slowly climbed up the hill and past the car I hopped off. Hoping I wouldn't be questioned I looked at the cop, the cop at me and then...I'm not sure if what happen next actually happened however... the black truck pulled in to the parking lot and right behind it the police car made a sharp U to follow it in.

I can't recall any more...

It's odd how in the dream, vs something I understood, I would choose to flee, while in other dreams, vs impossible odds, I choose to stay and fight.

¶ 1/13/2007 06:01:00 AM //

"The Year of the Pengins"

For those w/o A NYTimes Select Acct...

ADVERTISING; A Procession of Penguins Arrives on Madison Ave.

By STUART ELLIOTT
Published: January 10, 2007

NEVER mind what the Chinese calendar says. This is going to be the year of the penguin, at least on Madison Avenue.

Penguins have long been popular in advertising, but they have become even more so after three successful movies with penguin characters: ''Madagascar'' and ''March of the Penguins'' in 2005 and ''Happy Feet'' last year. They have helped turn the penguin into the new pitchbeast of choice.

There is, for example, Club Penguin, which offers a Web site for children at clubpenguin.com, and the revival by Perry Ellis International, under the Original Penguin label, of the apparel bearing penguin logos that was once sold by Munsingwear. Penguins appear in print ads for Dawn dishwashing detergent, sold by Procter & Gamble, and star in commercials for Coca-Cola Classic. Hallmark Cards centered a promotion on a ''dancing penguins'' Christmas tree ornament, and the National Geographic Society has spotlighted penguins in campaigns.

''There's obviously something about these little guys'' that is leading advertisers to think ''it says something about us as consumers to associate ourselves with penguins,'' said Michael Megalli, a partner at Group 1066, a corporate identity consulting company in New York.

One theory Mr. Megalli offered is what he called ''the Al Gore thing'' -- this is, ''we want to reassure ourselves penguins will have a place in a world with global warming.''

That theory is reinforced by a campaign last fall from St. Martin's Press for ''Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions,'' a business management book by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber. Penguins decorate the book jacket as well as the ads.

Another reason, Mr. Megalli says, may relate to the dynamic between the individual penguin and the flock.

''None of us wants to feel we're just another penguin in a sea of penguins,'' he said, so a penguin who strikes out on his own can be used to tell an appealing story.

That was the case in a Coca-Cola Classic commercial, by Wieden & Kennedy, that teams the brand's familiar polar bear characters with a colony of penguins. The spot was introduced for the 2005 holiday season and was brought back for 2006.

The commercial shows a polar bear cub intruding into a flock of penguins. The penguins do not know how to react until one steps forward and serves the bear a bottle of Coke Classic. The spot ends as all the penguins join the cub and its parents in grooving to a Beach Boys tune.

''The bears have stood for being approachable and friendly, and the penguins are chatty and social,'' said Katie J. Bayne, senior vice president for Coca-Cola brands in North America at Coca-Cola in Atlanta.

The commercial ''was the top-scoring spot we've ever done with the polar bears,'' Ms. Bayne said, referring to research conducted for Coca-Cola by Millward Brown, part of the WPP Group, ''and in the top 4 percent of all spots Millward Brown has tested in the carbonated soft drink category.''

Penguins have played a part in marketing and popular culture for almost a century. The imprint Penguin Books was introduced in 1926; seven years later came Willie, the brand mascot for Kool cigarettes, then owned by the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation.

Willie had his own Hollywood moment in the 1949 Marx Brothers movie ''Love Happy,'' when Harpo was chased through Times Square and climbed a neon sign advertising Kool. In the '50s and '60s, cartoons featured penguin characters like Chilly Willy and Tennessee Tuxedo.

Brown & Williamson sought to revive Willie in the early '90s, in a hipper incarnation, but in 1998 tobacco marketers agreed to end the use of cartoon characters in cigarette ads.

Penguins entered the high-tech realm in the late '90s, when Linux, the open-source computer operating system, adopted a penguin as its mascot.

The bird also appealed to the founders of Club Penguin, a Web site for children founded in October 2005 by Dave Krisko, Lane Merrifield and Lance Priebe.

Its genesis dates to 2000, when Mr. Priebe, working on computer games for children, ''happened to glance at a 'Far Side' cartoon featuring penguins that was sitting on his desk,'' said Karen Mason, a spokeswoman for Club Penguin in Kelowna, British Columbia. Work on Club Penguin began in 2004 and the name was selected in summer 2005, she added.

Summer 2005 was also the season of the documentary ''March of the Penguins,'' which initially had almost no advertising tie-ins because no one expected it to become the hit it did. Eventually, the National Geographic Society -- whose National Geographic Feature Film unit released the documentary with the Warner Independent Pictures division of Time Warner -- brought out ''March'' merchandise, like plush toys and books, and there were tie-ins with marketers like the Minute Maid unit of Coca-Cola.

By contrast, ''Happy Feet,'' released in November by the Warner Brothers division of Time Warner, had numerous marketing partners lined up in advance. They included Build-A-Bear Workshop, Burger King, General Mills -- and Roche Laboratories, the pharmaceutical company, for a campaign to promote a Web site, flufacts.com.

Roche, which makes a flu drug, Tamiflu, came in for criticism about the campaign.

On the blog of Shaping Youth, which studies the influences of marketing and the media on children (shapingyouth.org/blog), Amy Jussel, executive director, wrote: ''It's chilling to think that an animated cartoon is being used as a product-placement hook to sell paranoia, prevention and pop-a-pill solutions to families everywhere in a big-bucks deal that would make your head spin. (And not from the flu.)''

The next significant date for peddling penguins -- and penguin peddling -- is June 8, when the Sony Pictures Animation division of Sony is scheduled to release an animated film, ''Surf's Up,'' a mock documentary about a young surfing penguin (voiced by Shia LaBeouf) and his mentor (Jeff Bridges).

Trying to describe the idea, Premiere magazine wrote, ''Think 'Point Break' meets 'This Is Spinal Tap,' with penguins.''

Correction: January 12, 2007, Friday The Advertising column on Wednesday, about the popularity of penguin characters among marketers, misidentifed the agency that created a holiday commercial for Coca-Cola, based on information supplied by Coca-Cola. The agency was Berlin Cameron United, which previously worked for the company -- not Wieden & Kennedy, the current agency. The article also misspelled the surname of a founder of Club Penguin, a Web site for children. He is Dave Krysko, not Krisko.

¶ 1/13/2007 05:26:00 AM //

disaster,

pit

bull
camera
bed
home sweet home

court



There seems to be as natural disaster of some sort, I can't make out what it is in the panic of people running around although Brad Pitt seems to be in front of a news camera with a cocky attitude telling the public "I told you so". I think he has a monkey and...mind you this isn't the guy women go crazy over, he has big glasses, and odd hat and a big beard.

At one point he, and maybe a general are leaning up against shipping crates over looking the entire mess.

In the dream I'm very young, maybe 8 or even 7. It almost seems that every event that happens in one time line during the dream implants memories of the future that are based upon the action happening then and there.

At one point, we are on a bus, (My brother, who is perhaps 5 of 6, and myself). We then come across a neighbor hood creep we seem to know. He talks of disaster and how it's all over and then demands our jackets or he will hurt us.

On a side note,: in reality I'm reminded of 1st, or 2nd grade. There was a bully on the school bus. (I doubt it was the same, I can't even recall a face) and my brother would laugh at his antics. Till one day he kept poking him..then I realized he was not friend, he was foe. Not laughing with us, but rather at us. From that day forth every time we rode the bus together I made sure he was seated to the window, and I would protect him from said bully every day till the end of the year. My brother doesn't recall this, but I just did.

I knew he was stronger than both of us combined and I instantly saw his trial date, in what I was expecting NYC, but turned out to be New Haven. I gave him my jacket, It was all I had on and now had no shirt. He then demanded the same of my brother. I reluctantly prompted him to hand it over.

He then made some sort of comment regarding his pecks. I was so furious, yet so helpless.

I'm not sure whether I threw fists and they landed in a different realty, or I envisioned hitting him. Every fist I threw hit a stack of pink magazines, leaving faint knuckle marks after time.

I then recall flashes of us moving up the stairs at the house in NY. (there were many such flashes, but I can't recall nearly all of them)

Mean while our mother was in the hospital..and she was about to die due to injuries related to the disaster, She was talking to someone, and I can't recall what.

I then once again saw the future, my brother and his lovely home, and his family.

He had a picture discreetly hung on the wall, it was brown, with stripes of sorts, I can't recall what exactly it was. However then I recalled the past and , as my mother hastily prepared her two sons on to the evacuation bus, she picked up two digital cameras and took pictures of us, and our family and handed them to the both of us..


I woke up ready to cry...even in death a mother who had done so much to keep a family together through so much.The photo that still hung, memories...the future, all at the same time.

I see very little relevance in this dream however...It was far from what I typically dream of.

¶ 1/05/2007 04:41:00 AM //

Law Enforcemnt, Burial grounds, attack dogs, massive, ground shaking
cutting gates, fights, undead? night operations.

¶ 1/04/2007 04:18:00 AM //