I Dream of Xenu

Here’s the dream I had last night.

Scientologists asked me and my dad to help with a gigantic unfinished skyscraper that looked like a cross of the Ryugyong Hotel and the Hearst Tower. We tried to install some floor tiles somewhere close to the top, but could not locate the right equipment. My dad left, and I asked permission to look around and take some pictures (which I surprisingly got).

A helpful scientologist took me to one of the finished floors closer to the bottom and showed me a computer terminal that allowed you to do all your Christmas shopping without leaving the tower. I was very impressed with the user interface and the choice of products. The Church employs a huge amount of people, so it can buy in bulk; also many scientologists are computer programmers – my guide explained.

We wandered the halls for a little while, I played around with e-meters, and then my guide started digging up a floor in some hallway. He unearthed a body of a man dressed in superhero uniform of some kind, and proceeded to break off a toe from it. He explained that many people were buried in the floors of the tower, and that this in fact was the _original_ Xenu. My galactic-overlord-grave-robbing guide was planning to sell the toe to pay for auditing.

The whole thing ended badly – alarms sounded, I left, but did not rat out Xenu’s grave robber. Later, they accused me of stealing Xenu’s toe.

Uhhh, Ummm, Technically, God ….

This morning I was looking into ways to customize Ultraedit and came up upon this interesting piece of Ultraedit trivia:

… On March 18th 1996, we had received 11 “registrations'” for UltraEdit. This was a good day, and of course was an encouragement to us – But will it stop – is one product enough? This was tough, I didn’t have time to generate more products.

As I went to bed that night, I was praying about the situation, and I just felt like saying to God “If you give me 20 registrations tomorrow I will KNOW that I should quit my full time job, that it is your will”. As soon as I said this, I was excited, I felt sure it was going to happen. I also prayed for forgiveness if I was wrong to ask – I don’t like to try and make deals with God but really wanted his confirmation.

I got home later that day and checked the mail – No registrations! I was disappointed. I checked the fax machine, there was an order for 10! I couldn’t wait to log on and found additional registrations – a total of 21!!!

I am embarrassed to admit, at this point, being a technical person, I mentally noted that 21 was not 20 – I had asked for 20

Kings Highway Mural

Here is the thing from Kings Highway station that I mentioned before

I searched on the Net a bit, and now I know what it’s called: “Kings Highway Hieroglyphics” by Rhoda Yohai Andors, installed in 1987.

I was reading “The Non-Designers Design Book” today. It had a relevant passage in the introduction:

Many years ago I received a tree identification book for Christmas. I was at my parents’ home, and after all the gifts had been opened I decided to go out and identify the trees in the neighborhood. Before I went out, I read through part of the book. The first tree in the book was the Joshua tree because it only took two clues to identify it. Now the Joshua tree is a really weird-looking tree and I looked at that picture and said to my- self “Oh, we don’t have that kind of tree in Northern California. That is a weird-looking tree. I would know if I saw that tree, and I’ve never seen one before.” So I took my book and went outside. My parents lived in a cul-de-sac of six homes. Four of those homes had Joshua trees in the front yard. I had lived in that house for thirteen years, and I had never seen a Joshua tree. I took a walk around the block, and there must have been a sale at the nursery when everyone was landscaping their new homes -at least 80 percent of the homes had Joshua trees in the front yards. And I had never seen one before! Once I was conscious of the tree, once I could name it, I saw it everywhere. Which is exactly my point. Once you can name something, you’re conscious of it. You have power over it. You own it. You’re in control.