Surrealistic Dreams

In the dream we are sitting in the audience of a conference of super
computer geniuses, covering it for the Dowbrigade News, although we understand
almost nothing of what is being said in the presentations.

After the current presenter, who resembles a cross between Albert Einstein
at his disheveled best and Christopher Lloyd in "Back to the Future"
finishes
his speech, he asks for questions from the audience, and we, quite against
our will, raise our hand.

Someone brings over a microphone, and we hear ourself asking, as if
with the voice of another, "Uh, well, I just rented three Video CD’s
and can’t figure out how to play them on my iBook.  When I double
click on the CD Icon I just see four folders called and inside are files
with
formats I don’t recognize like .DAT and .NFS. How can I get these movies
to play on my computer?"

Einstein pins us with a withering look of absolute disdain and says,
"Young man, you are obviously at the wrong conference.  I suggest
you try something for computer illiterates trying to get started in the
field."

We stumble shamefacedly towards the ballroom exit, but as we go a kindly
and slightly familiar looking man comes up, puts his arm around our shoulder,
and says in a low voice, "Don’t worry about it, old Schleisermeister
is full of himself. I had that same problem myself – it’s really quite
simple.  All you need to do is…."

At that exact moment we were awakened by a loud snoring snort from Norma
Yvonne’s side of the bed. Somewhat annoyed and still half asleep we shoved
her shoulder and mumbled, "I can’t believe you woke me up, he was about
to tell me how to watch the movies…"

"Whaa?" sez Norma Yvonne.

We reach for the iBook to write this note. How can we get these movies
to play on our computer? Are we asleep or awake? If somebody writes us
with the answer, will we wake up before we can read it?