Discussion: Micr-O nightmare

[I sent this to Peter, and he said that it should be posted here. So here you are.]

Last night I dreamed that Peter Gagarin was course-setting the Highlander, and it included Micr-O -- a lot of it. And I think it was even more like Trail-O in that one of the possible answers was "none of the above" (which is the thing about Trail-O that really drives me up a wall). Overly annoyed by the whole business, I just ran the course and didn't punch anything. I got to one of the map
exchange points (where Phil Bricker was in charge of making hot sandwiches for the competitors, but he didn't have enough equipment and people were snarfing sandwiches that had been ordered by other people), and had to deal with my penalty lap situation. At that point, since I had punched nothing, I owed 256 penalty laps. I went to the designated penalty lap area, which was a small conference room in a hotel that contained a very small indoor track. Unfortunately, there was some sort of committee meeting going on in there, so the room was filled with a conference
table and a bunch of pear-shaped USOF honchos, who were using an overhead projector and completely blocking the room. I went back to try and deal with my sandwich, and came back in a little while, but the room was only partially cleared out, and now the track was clogged with pear-shaped people shuffling along like they were dosed up on thorazine. So I decided to just forget it and do the rest of the course without putting in my penatly laps. But somebody pointed out that if I didn't have a legitimate time, I'd lose my place among the folks who have completed all of the Highlanders. So I planned to finish up, then negotiate with Peter for doing all of the penalty laps (which I was figuring would be 512 or so) at the end. Seemed like running around Peter's car that many times would be a reasonable plan, since that was almost as
far as the track in the conference room.

Meanwhile, I couldn't find my bag of Highlander clothing, since it got misplaced when I moved recently, and was presumably somewhere in the extra bedroom here that's still full of random stuff. And at the hot sandwiches table, some of us remarked on the fact that Evalin Brautigam appeared to be flirting with both Stephen Koehler (age 8) and Brad Whitmore (age 50). (In real life, Brad is 52, and my bag of Highlander clothing is sitting on the top shelf in my bedroom closet.)

[Some of you may be inclined to try and interpret this dream. I'm not really sure if I want to know what it might mean, however...]

I dig the powers of 2! I'm sure your penalty laps would be faster as a result. Truly, a nerd's dream.

There's a whole lot of verisimilitude in this "dream."

True millipedes? My Latin is a little rusty.

I'm not sure whether it was 8 laps per botched Micr-O control, or if it doubled every time you made a mistake. Maybe we should ask PG, since he was in charge. But it's just about bedtime now -- hope I don't find out the answer in my sleep!

Now how about a Micr-O Night-O dream?

JJ, your mother has never told you that a Big Mac before bed is a bad idea?

I've never eaten a Big Mac in my life.

How about a Royale with cheese?

Not by that name; don't remember what I got at the McD's in Paris. I think I've gotten a Viertel-Pfunder mit Käse (or however you spell it), and I've definitely had a Dupli Hamburger sa sirom (a free ketchup packet for anyone who guesses what city that was in).

Bangkok?

sarajevo?

springfield?

eastern europe, not poland... i reckon sarajevo wouldn't be far off linguistically... i'll plump for ljubliana (oops, i think i've forgotten how it's spelt), just because it's closer to excellent slovenian orienteering maps :)

Well I guess this is quite understandable when you relaize JJ has just finished (I hope), designing and hanging bags for a 200 control point course.
Get some rest man!

Prague?

Cisak on the Sava?

JJ's been hanging bags for a few days now, but I think today was to be the biggest hanging day yet. So presumably he's still out there, plagued by frogs & cheeseburgers no doubt...

Hey - so who's doing the vetting for this? What if a moose eats #159 before Sunday AM?

Didn't I mention the protected Manchester Moose?
Without the shoes rented from the state of NH, the moose will be waiting for you at #159. (I see why Mikell has so much fun with this stuff.......).
Not to worry though, no badgers.

Badgers? We don't need no stinking badgers!

pavlina's friend says Zagreb, Croatia

Ooh, people are dancing around the answer, very close, but not quite there yet. Good linguistic detective work, I think.

Vetting by Billy Wilson and Ingrid X. Swenson, for the most part. (Although Tony Federer and Ernst Linder are on board for a portion of it.)

Interesting that you chose control #159, since that happens to be the end of the long leg...

Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti ...

Yeah, maybe Peter sent the mega course along with the sprints :)

I think Sarajevo, Zagreb, Ljubljana, and Sisak are all legitimate guesses based on the language. But I don't know how many of those have McDs. In 1988, when I got it, I suspect none of them did.

I'll guess Prague or Budapest.

Maybe as a karmic punishment for not going to the Highlander, I had a dream last night where I was running a mega-control event in which a proper effort (not J-J's puny attempt) had been made to use every symbol. It took all day to run the event; just as the last rays of the sun were setting, I had only the very last control ('area of firm ground in a marsh') to punch. The only problem was, the marsh was full of crocodiles (maybe they were alligators, but they looked a lot more like crocodiles). I managed to make it to the control by treading on their snouts as an alternative to getting into very deep, very mucky water, but after I punched and was on my way back, the crocodiles were no longer being helpful; in fact they were somewhat annoyed that I had been treading on them, and they kept on placing themselves successively further and further apart, so that I had to jump further and further to get onto the next snout. And then it happened - maybe the leap was too far, or maybe it was dark enough that I couldn't really see what I was doing, but I fell into the marsh, and got eaten by the crocodiles. There was a boat nearby with people who could have come to save me, but they didn't seem particularly interested.

I think the moral of the story is that there is no excuse for not going to the Highlander. I'll be there next year. Promise.

I had a nightmare too. I thought the Highlander course was set so that at the very end when every step uphill was a major effort, every control involved a climb. Oh wait, that wasn't a nightmare ...