Wholly nifty, Batman! I've found what I consider to be one of the finest pieces of video game composition, certainly from the 16-bit days, hanging around online free to download.

Visit this page, the Aladdin Mega Drive (Genesis) soundtrack, and check out the track called Arab Rock 1.

With music that good, I can forgive the level itself for being flipping impossible. The whole soundtrack is pretty good, as you'd expect from a game that was licensed to use the music from the film. It had nice instrumental mixes of the songs, occasionally used in surprising places, and the original-for-the-game compositions stand up well on their own: try Camel Jazz, or Rug Ride for more excitement. I like Gloomy Tune because I'm a sucker for cave levels.

In other retro-gaming news, the Ecco the Dolphin Genesis soundtracks (I'm not familiar with the music from the other platforms) are solid. They can be found here. Very atmospheric watery music with a few pulse-racing tracks: for example, Tube of Medusa from Ecco 2 (Genesis) and Open Ocean from Ecco 1 (Genesis). Welcome To The Machine from Ecco 1 (Genesis) is beautiful and just a little disturbing, something that's played up nicely in this twisted remix by Trace Kyshad. Fish City from Ecco 2 (Genesis) is nice and kind of relaxing, at least if you don't know what's going on at this point in the game.

The was a weird one. I don't usually do people-dreams. In the first part it was almost like I was having someone else's dream, but reacting to it like I myself usually would. I woke up remembering it fully and the details have stayed with me, unusually.

This took place in somewhere I assume was America. I was with some final-year or penultimate-year high school students in a large area like a gymnasium, not based on anywhere I know. "I" was in fact switching perspectives a little, but I knew about this in the dream; I was possessing various people with the goal of making things happen as I pleased.

It was towards the end of term. The teacher was holding a slightly rowdy meeting of the students, explaining an exercise in which they would have to take part sometime in the coming week. It was a roleplay exercise, although the details escape me (don't think I knew even in-dream).

One of the male students made a comment about it being lame and walked out. At this point I-the-possessing-person jumped into a female student, something of an airhead, in whose body I would be spending most of the dream. I walked over to the teacher and ruffled his combover. (Weirdly detailed for my brain.) "He's just excited because it's the end of term," I/she enthused.

"Get your feet back on the ground, Miss [whatever]," teacher said, straightening his thinning hair, and added something about her having to pass this exercise to get a good grade, and he didn't think she'd do very well. I/she smiled brightly and retreated to stand by a wall, where a male student whom she knew was standing with a few friends. I/she leaned in and was about to speak, but the teacher spoke a little more so I broke off and waited respectfully.

Around this point another male student, who I think looked Pakistani-Asian (another weirdly detailed detail; I never usually notice such things in dreams), made some smartass comment about, despite this roleplaying exercise being made-up, "it's still the closest thing we'll get to being ourselves [in this place]."

My girl and the boy she was next to fancied each other somewhat, still at the flirting stage, which I knew. My goal was to get her on his team for this roleplay exercise. Once the teacher finished talking I/she leaned in again and said "When my family lived in England I used to go on those MOD fortnights. It was like a week and a half of roleplaying. You had to be in-character and work out who the traitor was."

He seemed interested in this total lie that I made up on the spot, being very focused on winning this roleplay exercise. I/she added, for extra versimilitude, "I never won, but I came second one year!"

"You've ruined it now," he laughed. "What?" I/she said. "Well, telling me you went on these spy jaunts and then admitting you weren't all that good at them."

"I got very much better than I was," I/she said coldly and walked off. Behind me the boy said something along the lines of "OK, moody! What'd I say?" (I had the exact words, but forgot them while writing up the rest.)

I-the-possessing-person was satisfied with this, actually, because I was pretty sure they'd end up on the same team, which had been my goal. I didn't care if they argued throughout.

The irony that I myself was roleplaying several students escaped me in-dream.

The disjointed second part of the dream¹ came when I was abruptly back in my own body, and the younger students got out of their assembly and came into our hall. I had time to note briefly that I was in my own body, complete with the compression vest I usually wear. I saw my little brother in the diminuitive throng and quickly got spotted by a friend of ours, who is a real person who used to get our school bus. She was one year younger than Slen, exuberant and quite sweet, but tended to get in trouble for being too rowdy and bullied by other kids because she was Not Generic (which of course is why I liked her).

She came over and I honestly can't remember what she called me, which is a little annoying because I would like to know what my dreaming mind thinks my name is these days. We hadn't seen each other in a while and she asked me how I was and then insisted on introducing me to her younger sibling who had started at the school in the meantime. This was funny. He or she was a smaller clone of my friend. She was saying "[Smaller sibling], you have to meet [whatever my name is] and [Slen]!" and around that time I gradually woke up.

I also spent the next while after waking, including all the time I've been writing this, with the Massachusetts jingle from Family Guy² stuck in my head! When I got up I could hear from downstairs that my mother's watching that show, so maybe I really heard it.

¹ These segments are generally much more grounded in the real world; in retrospect I can always tell when my mind was moving towards a waking state.
² Also, while looking up that clip I discover that it's a parody of a real thing, which makes it funnier.