Ed =

I've had a surprising number of dreams take place in the Mall of America. But it's not the Mall of America you know. It's the Mall of America that's haunted by Sorceress Edea, sectioned off, has a store specifically designed to scare autonomophobic people, has a raking/hoeing party every year, teaches networking classes, and has an incidental appearance by Draco Malfoy.

And it's the same mall, every time.

I was in Duluth for the weekend. Didn't even go near the University, but darn-it-all if I didn't dream about the school again!

I don't remember much of the dream, but I think I decided to show up at vocal jazz as they were moving stuff from the rehearsal room into Weber Music Hall and help them move stuff by doing cartwheels and front hand springs.

If you appoint another person as your power of attorney, and they start punching you, would it be grammatically / legally correct for them to state "quit hitting yourself"?

I just want to let everybody know a few things before I die. I plan on living forever, and so far, I'm doing great, but I'm talking about death in the metaphysical sense.

You see, I've graduated from all school, I've moved out of my parents' house, I've held down a steady 9 to 5 job for over a year, I take happy pills, I must soon be dead inside.

This is not to say that I wasn't dead inside before. My level of excitement never was very high in college either. That's when it's supposed to be up there, right? Partying and such? Well, now I do about the same amount of partying, less schoolwork unrelated to my career, and more programming... excuse me, "software development" every day. Frankly, I'd be fine calling it Riverdancing with an elephant, but it wouldn't fit in my signature, and I don't think other people would understand so much.

I digress. I thought the idea was that I'm supposed to die inside once I enter the workforce. My hopes and dreams should be smashed by now. Once I become the average Joe the Riverdancing Elephant Tamer, my life is supposed to take a subtle but definitive downward turn, until I find that drinking and doing drugs so immature and... wait, I've always... okay, bad example. Until I find that entertaining guests by watching the Sunday football game with mini weenies and drinks is fun... darnit, again! Well, at least during the Superbowl anyway. I've been a middle-aged person my whole life! Okay, until life itself seems blasé, every day is the same, day in, day out, and suddenly, one day, you realize you've been describing how I've already been acting for the past five years!

Darn it! Should have done more partying and drunkery in college.

After much (dreamy) thought, I have come up with a much better way to play Magic: The Gathering. Take everybody's cards, shuffle them all up, and deal each player 7 cards, just like poker. Everybody draws from the same library. It makes playing with a sliver deck much more interesting.

I also came up with a couple of new cards:

Lode Stone: Neutralize any one scented bomb.

Master Lode Stone: Choose one scent. Tap to neutralize a similarly scented bomb. Tap to change the scent of the Master Lode Stone. You may only play this ability once.

Now we just have to come up with scented bombs, I guess.