The popular culture, topical edition

"It seemed to be business as usual for Monteith on his final afternoon. At 1:24 p.m., the star took to Twitter to ask, 'what the crap is Sharknado.' One minute later, at 1:25, he seemed to have found the answer, tweeting, 'oh. IT'S A SHARK TORNADO.' His tweets refer to the Syfy original movie 'Sharknado,' which stars Tara Reid and Ian Ziering, and is, indeed, about a shark-tornado. These would be the last tweets Monteith would ever post."
-- from a Yahoo news article about the final day of recently deceased Glee actor Cory Monteith

Historians of the future, the paragraph above will be useful to you when assessing, evaluating, and documenting 2013.

Conversation with a friend at a 4th of July party six or seven hours ago

I don't have a photographic memory, so this is paraphrased. Otherwise, this conversation is, to the best of my recollection as a flawed human being, true.

(Normal party conversation about Twin Peaks leads to normal party conversation about dreams.)
Me: And watching most of the series during a few isolated days of a terrible Nebraska snowstorm led to dreams about Agent Cooper giving me clues from the Black Lodge. I would wake up and briefly feel the rush of finding a fellow Twin Peaks resident to give the message to only to remember that I was a college student at the University of Nebraska and my life was depressingly ordinary and dull.
Friend: My orthodontist held me hostage for several days.
Me: In real life or in a dream?
Friend: In a dream. He trapped me in my house and wouldn't let me leave, but he kept feeding me cherries that were the best cherries I'd ever had in my life. I hid several of the cherries in my couch cushions so I could eat them later. When I woke up, I was excited about all the cherries in my couch until I remembered I was dreaming. My orthodontist later killed himself.
Me: In real life or in the dream?
Friend: In real life. He found out his wife was cheating on him and asked her to meet him for lunch at the Hyatt downtown. When she showed up, he killed her and killed himself. I was supposed to get my braces off that week, and I couldn't get anyone to take off my fucking braces so I took them off myself.
Me: That reminds me. My brother and sister's dentist was decapitated in a terrible car accident. He was like 6'8" and the rest of his family was shorter than him. They hit something with their car and it took his head right off because he was so tall.
Friend: I had a friend I went to high school with who was decapitated in a car accident. He went on a road trip with one of his college professors and they were both decapitated in the accident.

Happy belated 4th of July, everyone!