Last week on BuzzFeed, a meme popped up about a man named Jim Donnelly. Jim attracted attention for running an advertisement in his local newspaper in New Bedford, MA, in which he asks people to become his friend on Facebook (to learn, among other things, “Useful Information”). The internet, being what it is, reacted to the this unusual proposition in its typical manner. Heck, I even added a “WTF” badge to the comments thread.

With that simple statement of “Hello, I’m Jim Donnelly from The Internet!” he quickly became a sensation:

After reading the story, I decided to post it to my Facebook page. After all, it’s not every day someone promotes their Facebook account via newspaper. Lo and behold, Jim paid me a visit in the comments, and so I decided to ask him a few questions to learn more about why he decided to reach out to people in this particular manner, and how the attention this week has been. The interview (and his extensive answers) are after the jump.
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I was watching the Nova episode called What Are Dreams the other day, and I was particularly interested in one bit of information from the show: if you practice enough, you can tell your brain what to dream about. There are some caveats, in that it only works about 50% of the time, and that you’re still not in total control of what happens.

I tend to remember a lot of my dreams, so I thought I’d give it a go. For the past three nights, as I close my eyes, I’ve thought this:

“I’m going to help Sherlock Holmes* solve a mystery. I’m going to help Sherlock Holmes solve a mystery!”

Two nights, and nothing (that I could remember, anyway). But then last night, something seemed to happen! Ryan came to bed after working late, and I woke up enough to say “Shh! I’m dreaming about Holmes!” before I passed back out again. This morning, I actually could recall several dream sequences in which I was in a Holmes mystery-solving situation of some kind. My problem is that I fall asleep almost the moment I hit the pillow, so I don’t usually get enough time to try and convince my brain to dream the way I want it to. It’s more like “I’m going to…” and then I’m out cold.

But hey, it was pretty cool! Dreams are important for helping our brain work through issues and problems from our waking life (and I’m not just talking murder mysteries), but if you can program it to work like your own personal holodeck, how entertaining would that be?

Anyway, give it a shot sometime. This isn’t some kind of weird self-help thing (Learn to ski with your dreams! Come up with your million-dollar idea in your sleep!), it’s just an interesting way to explore what your mind can do.

*I’m going through a Sherlock Holmes phase. It started with reading The Beekeepers Apprentice, then the complete Arthur Conan Doyle collection, and will culminate with the viewing of the movie this Christmas. So, a little obsessed.

I mentioned that I was going to guest on an episode of The Gloomers, and here it is! I had so much fun recording with them, and I love how my animated-self turned out. I also did a behind-the-scenes interview with Moses the day we recorded, which you can view below:

For more Gloomers, become their fan on Facebook and subscribe to the show on YouTube!

I had the distinct honor of hanging out with the team from The Gloomers and Jetset Studios this week, while I was there recording voiceover for a very special guest role in their upcoming holiday episode! I can’t tell you too much more about it (since we want it to be a surprise), but in the meantime check out their Friday the 13th show below!

I loved doing the voice-acting for a character, hopefully I can work with them again sometime. The Gloomers are also on Facebook, so if you like what you see become a fan.