I dreamt about zombies last night.

This isn’t a rarity. One every two or three months I’ll have an extremely vivid zombie dream, and it isn’t simply because I’m inclined to watch more than my fair share of living dead movies - and last night was no exception, as I watched the first Resident Evil, which was good until they introduced the slimy monster guy.

This recurring dream - and I refuse to call it a nightmare, because somehow it doesn’t feel like one - involves me, a group of people who I have never seen before, and a world overrun by zombies. Consider the most recent remake of Dawn of the Dead, where the zombies can run, are very strong, and are generally not as stupid as they usually are made to be as the basis for this.

I never die in these dreams. I am usually leading a group of people to some semblance of safety; a few months ago, we were trying to reach a loft space in a large mansion by the side of a lake, for example.

The interesting part of these dreams is that it always somehow parallels something going on in my life at the time, and is usually work-related. Some time ago I was stressed out over the fact that I felt myself to be the minion of the marketing team whose ideas and suggestions always seemed to be overlooked by the higher-ups. This was echoed in the dream; I was doing my damnedest to get the group I was leading to safety, but for some reason no one acknowledged me as I tried to maneuver an extremely heavy ladder towards the loft we were trying to reach.

I’m curious as to the basis for these dreams, not so much because of the parallel between the actions in the dream and what’s going on at the office, because that’s rather obvious, but because of the prevalence of the living dead. The most common interpretation I’ve found of zombie dreams includes the subject as a zombie himself. Dream-Meanings.org says,

To see or dream that you are a zombie, suggests that you are physically and/or emotionally detached from people and situations that are currently surrounding you. You are feeling out of touch.

Alternatively, it may indicate that you are feeling dead inside and are simply going through the motions of daily living.

This is decidedly not the case with me. Apart from randomly being stressed out about something, I’m generally happy with my life and everything in it. I have a great home life, and despite somewhat tumultuous periods - perfectly normal, I’ve heard - I do love my job.

Anyway, the point of all this is that, in last night’s dream, there was a first-time experience: I chopped off the arm of one of my company’s software engineers. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately with the big launch and all (in this dream, there were far more zombies than usual - another parallel, methinks). But I have no ill well towards the guy. In fact, I thought it to be rather amusing.

I felt the same way with the series finale of Friends … the series finale of Sex and the City … and now I have to feel empty with the loss of my current favorite program, The L Word. Yes, ladies, our favorite group of Los Angeles lesbians is breaking up after six seasons, Showtime says. Ilene Chaiken, L Word creator, is in the process of creating eight final episodes to wrap up the series … which in and of itself is distressing because every other season has twelve or thirteen episodes, but Chaiken seems to think that everything can be “wrapped up” in eight episodes. Yeah, we’ll see.

Either way, it’ll be a sad ‘n empty Sunday night for me at the end of this.

Thanks for the tip, Shazzer.

Meg and I went to see 28 Weeks Later on Saturday night, the first movie we’ve seen in the theater since Ghost Rider (PS, don’t even bother with that one … ugh, Nicolas Cage) and I have a few thoughts on it.

WARNING: Don’t read ahead if you’re worried about spoilers.

1) So the US comes in, all heroic-like, and sets up a quarantine for the survivors of the infection, which they believe has been wiped out. Why, then, if it is ‘expressly forbidden’ to leave the compound, is security so lax that two children can sneak out virtually undetected? Also, wouldn’t it make sense to create a bunker in case of emergency that actually could keep out the infected? By sticking everyone in a parking garage, protected only by a set of doors that don’t even have chains, you’re just asking for a disaster. Seriously.

2) Part of the charm and jump-factor of the first film was the use of split-second shots on the faces of the infected as they attacked their victims. These split-second shots were, of course, just long enough so that the viewer could take in the gruesome faces fully; in 28 Weeks Later, these shots were so quick that, in various parts, they had almost a strobe light effect that was highly distracting and made things difficult to take in, thereby defeating the purpose of quick shots in the first place. The attack in the subway, for example, happened so quickly that I felt like I had blinked and missed it completely. Lacking were the great shots that built up to the actual attack, such as that scene in the first movie where Jim is attacked in his kitchen by a neighbour who crashes through the window. We could see the infected running towards the window, then the scene switched back to a peaceful Jim, then BOOM. Attack. Awesome. Freaked me out the first time I’d seen it.

3) So everyone in the world is fine save for those in Britain? What happened to the fact that Selena said in the first film, “The day before the TV stopped broadcasting, there were reports of infection in Paris and New York.” But apparently this wasn’t the case in 28 Weeks Later. Hmm.

4) The infected never before demonstrated that they had any knowledge of those they were attacking, even if they were neighbours, or related, or anything. Then why did the children’s father seem to seek them out and target only them?

5) The ending left me wanting more, as we’d been given no explanation of what happened, whether the helicopter had crashed, whether Andy had gone mental and infected the other two, or whether a vaccine had been created as a result of the kids’ immunity to the disease. And why hadn’t the thousands of infected from the first outbreak not shimmy down the Chunnel originally?

Apart from all this, of course, I thought it was a thoroughly enjoyable horror flick, and of course I’ll buy it when it comes out on DVD and watch it many more times, as I did with 28 Days Later. Plus, it stars Robert Carlyle, who’s just a fabulous actor. And the infected still freak me out.

… at least, it feels that way outside. If we have another cold spell, I think I may actually hurt somebody. This past week was crazy with the Nor’easter that came through; though my street wasn’t largely affected by it, numerous roads were shut due to overflowing rivers and drains, and I heard that downtown Rahway was full of people in boats. Basically, it was just very wet, very gray, and quite cold and miserable. This probably explains why everyone at The Office seems to be sick. Bloody winter. Go away!

Last week we had a sales and marketing kickoff meeting in Atlantic City, three days with eight hours each of presentations, team-building exercises, and so forth. It was pretty interesting, actually, and caused some heated debates … but of course that’s not the bit that made me happy. No, it was my discovery that I absolutely adore playing blackjack for money. By the end of the third night, Meg (who had come to visit that night because she didn’t have to work the next day) was keeping all of my chips in her pocket for me so that I wouldn’t spend anymore, and when I cashed out I had about $1100. Not bad for a poor sod like me! Plus, given that the hotel and all meals were paid for by my company, I made a fair bit. Nothing wrong with that.

On a random note, Chris bought Guitar Hero II the other day for XBox 360 (did I mention I bought that? Well, I did, and it’s fabulous!) and brought it over last night so that I could finally try it out. Let’s just say, I don’t think I should ever buy it for myself. I wouldn’t play anything else. I already have problems enough with The Godfather.

And finally, thank goodness Sanjaya and his bloody hair are finally gone from American Idol. If LaKisha had gone before him, I may have actually stopped watching (that’s a blatant lie, of course, but I would have been more than a little bit peeved). But what will America be talking about now? Honestly, as much as I disliked the guy, he was the most interesting part of the show this year. Even Paula seems to have lightened up on the drugs; she’s lost her infamous ‘colour’ from previous seasons.

Per the last post, I did in fact get a ’snow day,’ although perhaps it would be better categorized as a ‘ice and hail day,’ since that was pretty much what we got. My area of Jersey ended up with about three or four inches of this sludge, which quickly froze and generally prohibited leaving one’s house, much less driving. Apparently everyone else at The Office felt the same way, because only two or three people made it in.

So even though I was required to work from home - which I did, to my surprise - it was a really nice mid-week break from the daily grind. I have to admit, though, that if I were to work from home permanently, I would no doubt become a workaholic. Meg actually had to yell at me to stop checking my work email at 10:30 that night.

Speaking of which, work has been busy, busy, busy since we’ve finally organized ourselves within the marketing department and signed up for the 3803242 trade shows that we’re planning to attend this year. I’ve found myself in charge of the weekly marketing dashboard, tracking web site visitor interactions, new leads, the revenue pipeline, and so forth. It’s a lot of numbers, but, funnily enough, I’m not put off by that. If nothing else, I get to make lots of colorful graphs, and I sound important when I’m rattling off the numbers to the SVP.

Last weekend was okay, though not nearly as crazy as the one before that. Friday night was a typical quiet night, take-out Chinese food and a video from Blockbuster. Saturday, of course, we went out to The L Bar in central Jersey; very few people we knew were there, but the place was mobbed and the music was pumping, so no complaints there. Sunday night was Jen’s L Word gathering, but I was so knackered for some reason and had such a bad headache that Meg and I ended up leaving practically right after the show.

Meg’s dad came up from Philly from Sunday until Monday (Monday being a holiday, of course), and we ended his visit by playing poker for about four or five hours on Monday evening, after having gone to see Ghost Rider at the cinema. I’m not a Nicolas Cage fan by any stretch of the imagination - he ranks closely with Keanu Reeves with regard to acting talents, of which both have very little - but it was a pretty entertaining flick. It’s no X-Men, but I’d say it’s probably good for a rental, anyway.

On Friday a bunch of us are planning to go see Gray Matters, that new film with Heather Graham, Tom Cavanagh, and - wicked - Rachel Shelley, otherwise known as Helena, from The L Word. I’m excited.

Back to work, methinks.