I love crazy dreams. The only dreams that ever truly scare me are the ones where something bad happens to my dogs. I’ve had at least five very vivid zombie dreams and woke up thinking, “THAT WAS AWWWWWESOME!”

Last night’s dream got pretty intense.

It started randomly, as most dreams do, with me in a vehicle on a street. There was a large building across a concrete court yard to my left. 30 yards behind the vehicle or so was a back alley with a lot of stuff obstructing the sides (so there was a lot of room to hide). I get out of the vehicle and AC is stomping towards me, fuming mad. Apparently I was supposed to be watching his vehicle with his stuff in it.

I shrugged his anger off as an irrational reaction and started to return to my own vehicle when I heard shots fired in the alley behind me. I turned and ran towards the area. The walls of the alley were only about eight feet high, and the weather was overcast in the evening time right before dusk. I rounded a corner to find AC dead in a pool of blood. I immediately drew my pistol (in real life, it’s a little sub-compact 9mm, a Glock 26).

I turned to the right to see the back of a larger, taller guy. He turns around and I say something like, “Hold it.” I see that he has a gun in his hand and realize that he is AC’s killer. He just stared at me without saying anything, and then I saw his gun hand start to rise.

I fired a round and kept trying to pull the trigger again, yet the trigger stayed depressed. It’s the same thing that occurs if you fire an unloaded Glock — you have to rack the slide in order to reset the trigger on the striker fired gun. The trigger stayed depressed and I couldn’t fire it again. I don’t even know if I hit the guy, but it didn’t matter. He raised the gun and sprayed me with a machine pistol, which fanned rounds up my chest.

I turned and ran despite the wounds and was trying to work through the gun malfunction.  Things get hazy at this point because I started to wake up, but I remember that there was another confrontation about to occur. The last thought was of AC’s lifeless, bleeding body.

Once more into the fray

Into the last good fight I’ll ever know

Live and die on this day

Live and die on this day

The Grey is the type of film that gives me hope for Hollywood and the film industry. There is a constant barrage of crappy movies that are superficial and meaningless. Even movies that have potential end up failing due to horrible writing, vapid plots, and even worse acting. Liam Neeson and The Grey are set apart from this crowd.

Neeson plays another one of those “tall and somber” characters in the midst of an extraordinary set of circumstances. While travelling home to Anchorage from the northern oil fields, a plane goes down in the Alaskan wilderness. Neeson tries to lead the survivors while they are being hunted by what can only be described as dire wolves.

That’s all that I’ll share about the plot, because I hate spoilers just as much as smith machines. The story may seem very basic, but there’s an underlying theme of emotional struggle that peaks through. However, this movie thrives on thrilling suspense. There are moments of such ball-busting intensity that made my palms sweaty while I leaned forward in my seat. Expect blood and death.

The plot isn’t void of characters, and it thrives on the interpersonal relationships of the survivors. Catastrophic events change people, bringing out the worst and best in men. That’s what this movie is all about; man’s ultimate struggle for survival. Whenever I watch or read these stories, I always wonder how I would function or react in similar scenarios. It’s impossible to know whether we will be sniveling fools or fighters until the death.

Great stories will leave you with something. I love that lasting feeling or impression you get when the credits start to roll. Sometimes it isn’t what you want, but you can always glean a lesson or a theme from it. The best stories drop their themed bomb right at the ending, and The Grey does this powerfully. I highly recommend this thrilling survival movie for both it’s entertainment and teaching quality. It’s one of the few movies out today that isn’t a pile of shit.

I saw something that said, “Character is how you treat those that can do nothing for you.”

I completely disagree. If I see some piece of shit homeless guy on the side of the street, what’s the point? If I try and do something for him, he isn’t going to change. If he was going to change, then he wouldn’t be dirty, smelly, and itching himself. It may sound like an assholish thing to say, but how many people do you know that are hard working, completely bust their ass, and have an undying desire to be successful that are homeless, jobless, or a bum? Oh, that’s right, none.

Instead, the quote should say, “Character is how you treat those that you can do something for.”

I’m trying to upload a tubular pic.

Failed…

This is a post about boners. The picture will not entail boners.

This picture provides boners.