I had a dream this morning. As I've said before, it's pretty uncommon for me to remember my dreams. I don't think I've remembered one since the last one. Okay, THAT made sense. Since the last one I blogged about, back in freaking I dunno, lemme look it up. November. Maybe it's because I don't normally go to bed until I'm actually tired. Or maybe it's because my definition of "tired" is "if I don't go to bed NAO Pattie's gonna find me passed out at my computer or on the crapper. Again." Maybe I need to look at that. And maybe I'm rambling.

The dream. That's right. For whatever reason I dreamed I was back at Bluffton. Trigger and Hoch were there, even though it was my senior year. Found my room and started talking to the new roomies and the people popping in and out, none of whom I recognized. The thing I found remarkable was how easily I was talking to everybody, that's never been my strong suit. So why this dream now? Some possibilities:

* I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Bluffton. Who wouldn't want to dream about it?

* As of February 15, my student loans were paid in full. OH GOD YES. Now I can think about Bluffton without also thinking "Jeez, I'm STILL paying them?"

* My mom's getting ready to redo some rooms at her house, which means I'm going to be cleaning my old room out (and probably cleaning out stuff here, since I'm sure I'll find stuff there I want to bring here). Preparation for a waking trip down memory lane?

* Long nights of pushing a dust mop and cleaning crappers allow for copious amounts of introspection, and occasionally the topic turns to where my life has been -- and why -- and where I want it to go. One of the things I've realized is that I need to readjust how much it matters what certain people think, say and do. Let it reflect on what kind of person they are, then let it go. Easier said than done, maybe, but hey. Maybe a reaction to introspection?

* I've also realized that I really want to reconnect with Jon, one of my friends from Bluffton and one of the few I've spoken to since. (His wedding was where I met Pattie.) He's far from perfect, sure, but show me someone who isn't.

* Speaking of weddings, Rachael's is in a few weeks. The last time I was at a non-family wedding where I was the one who first knew the couple was, in fact, back when I was at Bluffton. Maybe that one's a stretch, but hey, my major was chemistry, not dream analysis.

Not to be confused with RC Edge -- the limited-time high-caffeine/taurine/ginseng cola that saw me through my one and only all-nighter in college (over four years ago...ancient history) -- Pepsi Edge's claim to fame is "full flavor, 50% less sugar." Now, I'm not jumping on the "carbs are the devil" bandwagon here (Atkins is no healthier than any other fad diet), but c'mon, empty calories are empty calories. And aspartame (aka Nutrasweet) gives me headaches, so normal diet pops are out, whereas Pepsi Edge uses a combination of high-fructose corn syrup and Sucralose.

"Normal diet?" There's an oxymoron for ya. But I digress.

Pepsi Edge tastes exactly like Pepsi -- and you're talking to someone who can tell the difference between Diet Pepsi and Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi. (One can occasionally doesn't kill me now that it's out of my system, and it also took me a while to figure out what was giving me the headaches.) And therein lies the possible beginning of a nightmare for Pepsico.

The way anything low-carb is selling like hotcakes these days...er. Um. The way anything low-carb is selling like low-carb hotcakes these days, combined with the lack of a taste difference, means Pepsico could be in for an identity crisis if Pepsi Edge starts outselling regular Pepsi. What do they do if a side-product starts outselling their namesake? Switch the names? Kill the side-product? Change the name of the company? (Pepsiedgeco? Nah. Edgeco? Maybe.) I suppose it's possible that it won't sell as well as I think it will -- there's still a stigma attached to diet pops, no matter how good they taste -- but I wouldn't be surprised to see this happen if they keep Pepsi Edge around for a year or so.

Now if they'd just bring back RC Edge. That stuff was da bomb, and a helluva lot cheaper than today's "energy drinks"...

Speaking of ancient history, shout-out goes to Colonel Kirby, from such wonderful now-defunct message boards as Gamespecs and Everything Squaresoft. He actually found my LJ info via my defunct-but-still-there message board (The Agora, and I recommend either Firefox or a popup-killer if you plan to visit) while browsing Ezboard. Three cheers for serendipity. So, anywho, I can now fulfill one of my goals in life -- namely, to pester CK about mismatching banner typefaces until his head explodes.

Or not. Maybe I'll be nice to him.

For a while.

In any case, good to be back in touch!

So, in the middle of Mike's load of laundry, the washer cuts out. It starts back up just as he's wringing out by hand the last of his clothes. Figures.

Jon and his 2-year-old daughter Ashley were over today. (Busy day for company, any more it's usually just Mike. And I'm pretty much fine with that.) I'm not entirely sure why (aside from not having the balls to stand up to his wife) -- he didn't say much of anything, basically me and Mike played with Ashley. I think it's a matter of us not having much in common anymore now that we're both out of college.

Heh...did I say something about only being able to play GT2 so much before it got old? Well...I suppose it has been a while. Good fun.

This just might be part of what's wrong with society today. When we need PSA billboards reminding us that "If there's grass on the field, play ball" is just a joke, we need to get our collective head back on straight. Not that it's too surprising, if you think about some of our standards of beauty -- thin, unblemished skin, no hair besides on the head -- it's almost a wonder it doesn't happen more often.

I've made my first addition to my Friends list. Good reading, sarcastic while still being human. Unlike mine, which tends to read like a book. I've just always written like that. It's not that I don't have feelings, it just never really strikes me to write about them. Probably because they don't get too extreme too often. Mixed blessing at best -- the lows aren't as low, but the highs aren't as high. Ah well.

Jeez. Did I write all that? Heh. I'm mentally hyper tonight. (Physically I'm seldom-to-never hyper.)

Wow. For the longest time, you just couldn't get a free LiveJournal account without a referral. Cool. The main thing that wound up causing the failure of my other weblog (don't even remember the site) was the lack of ease of use, so this is certainly a nice change.

To those wondering, "gyouketsu" is Japanese for "blood clot." I suppose I could make up some pretense about how the journal staunches the outflow of ideas from my memory, but in truth I just plugged "blood" into a Japanese dictionary (this one) and picked the one that sounded cool. Yes, that officially makes me a poser. Once I'm inspired by something I'll change it, but I just felt like getting started tonight. Which is odd, considering that procrastination is one of my dominant traits. Ah well.

Nothing of substance here -- don't really have anything to complain about, nothing to really rave about (possibly aside from fried cheese), head's too fuzzy to be political (NOT LIKE THAT!) -- this early in the morning life's just moving along at a contented little hum.