not nighttime dreams, but life goals, life wishes, pie in the sky hopes for themselves that bring a sparkle to their eye.

whats interesting is both of these people are extremely intelligent, somewhat overachievers, and pretty much capable of anything.

and one of the best things about them is theyre both busblog readers. so babies, this ones for you.

i think you know youre dreams. i think you know in your heart what you want. fuck if i know what it is, but i think you do.

i think your heart does. i think if you look at a picture of yourself as a little kid, your favorite little kid picture, your favorite school picture, the photo of yourself when you were indestructible and filled with possibilities you knew even back then.

i say do a few things to summon the Truth from your soul. cuz you know it wants to come out. first thing id do is go do something you did when you were the age you were of that most favorite little kid picture. like skateboard or go to a batting cage or eat a sundae at baskin robbins or drink some cheap warm beer in front of a black n white tv with the cubs on.

then think about what youd do if you could do anything. think about what youd do after you ate a really good meal after you had really good sex after you had a really good nap. what would you do? what would you do if every day you woke up and ate sexxed and bam it was 8:30am and the whole day was open to you.

i would be manager of the cubs. or a professor at ucsb. or blog editor of the la times. and strangely i did the technique that im recommending for almost 100 years before one of those dreams came true. little did i know, but i was “making it happen”.

ok so thats one technique. the other one is to get on your knees and pray. i dont think either of you are religious so pray extra hard because the connection to heaven might not be so good for you and you have to tune that radio dial in just right. you dont have to pray very hard, just honestly. pretend hes up there. pretend hes listening. and just talk. say whatever you wanna say. say help me figure this out. then say, if i was my car keys where would i be. then say if i was my dreams where would i be. if that doesnt work say if i was really yours what would you want me to be with all my smarts and hotness and excellence.

dont be scared with the answers. lots of people sell out and dont actually follow their dreams, and if you become one of them its ok you will have lots of company. some people dont know what their dreams are until they look around and say fucking a bitches this is Exactly what i should be doing.

another technique is to drive with the radio off to vegas and if you dont have your dreams figured out you hafta keep dreaming till you get to salt lake city. if you still dont have a dream you hafta get married to a polygamist. hi.

in asia they meditate. i dont know anything about that. my buddy os used to do it though. hed sit with his legs crossed and perfect posture and try to get everything as quiet as possible. and then keep it as quiet as possible for as long as possible. now he has kids and nothings quiet. so be careful what you meditate for.

but heres the best thing about dreams. once you accomplish them new, weirder, cooler dreams appear to you. so fucking get to getting those first dreams. for example i used to dream that i would move from illinois to los angeles and make out with hot babes. waaaay sooner than i ever expected i was doing Just that. then i dreamed that i would live on the beach and make out with hot girls. did that for a while and several dreams later i wanted to just sit in my house and blawwwwg all day. sure enough one day i was doing just that. now i barely have time to blog any more but thats because a dream i totally gave up on totally came true when i least expected. but the thing is you have to open your heart to what your heart always wanted. you hafta be ok with it being cheesy or nerdy or fucked up stupid or whatevers. own the cheese of your dreams.

be that cheese cuz guess what all of us know that part of you anyways.

finally, if none of those things works. try this one. write down all the things that you want in your life. just the details. like i always wanted good bosses, smart people around me, respect, free parking, good food, a chance to be creative, i didnt wanna wear a tie, i wanted to be asked good questions, i wanted to be part of a winner. write down stuff like that that you want. every night. keep adding to the list. then read the list before you pray and cross shit off if it doesnt work for you any more. and when you read that list i bet ya a job will appear. magically. to you. dont worry if the job doesnt exist yet. dont worry if it doesnt pay very well. life isnt about money. well dreams arent, at least.

dreams are about fun. have fun in your life. have fun dreams, identify them and then go for them. and then help others get theirs.

photo of elvis costello at the el rey wednesday by joey maloney, used with permission. check in on LAist today for his photo essay review of the show

who just also happens to write on our most popular blog

today he got written up on PBS’s Mediashift blog:

I’ve spent 26 years at the New York Times and another 7 here [at the L.A. Times]. Outside of my family, I’ve never witnessed seeing someone reading my story in print. So I’m looking at the numbers for my blog post, and for nearly seven hours, we had seven new readers arriving on our blog every second. We’ve had days since then that have been several times that…When you tell that to a newspaper crowd, it’s like ‘Whoa!’ it gets a reaction.”

Congrats to Andy, who is also a new grampa!

If you’re not reading Top of the Ticket, trust me, you won’t be bored.

update: in February we announced that TooT made it into the Technorati Top 1000
… a mere few months later it is at #217.

i do wish i was there.

im not exactly sure why i get along so well with the kids up yonder but it was lust at first site. i feel extremely comfortable in canada. doesnt matter if im in vancity or to or any part in between.

whats weird about it is i couldnt live in a more different place than la, hollywood to be precise, where i also feel very comfortable, but it is all so peaceful and easy up there.

im very jealous that so many of you will get to return to massey hall and drink around the corner and party after the show and karaoke and eat and make out with my beautiful chinese twins.

im jealous that you all get to meet sass and give christie her 24 birthday spankings and pet raymis cute lil fuzzy muffin. im jealous that you will get to slam dance to apparitions with pitt and fil and dan and krista, im sad that i cant be with you to order molsens.

i do have one question though, whenever i order a molsen the bartender always asks “canadian?” as if i would want anything else. of course canadian.

tomorrow night after i get home from work i will put on my hockey night in canada shirt and my maple leaf toque and blast my two favorite triumph records (allied forces and never surrender”.

little known fact, when i was in high school i used to dream of being in a rock band and i would draw album covers as i waited for the bell to ring. i would draw these very detailed scenes where these creatures that were made of fingers would be rocking out. the band was called “hidden forces” as a tribute to triumph, in a way.

because i was young and i thought i was so amazingly clever the first cover of a hidden forces album was exactly the same image of the rolling stones sticky fingers.

whatever, i wish i could eat some bad poutine with you and afterwards drunk dial lowercase carmen. who has a new blog, btw.