If you play video games at all and don't live under a rock you're probably aware that Blizzard is releasing Wrath of the Lich King (the next expansion for World of Warcraft) on November 13th.  On the day this happens millions of happy little geeks will stay up until Midnight, plop down $50 to purchase the pre-order they made at their local video game shop, and proceed to ooh and ahh over all the shiny new content that Blizzard is offering to them.

So I have this very unusual sense of loss this morning that is related to the dream I had last night.  In this dream I had a daughter (the odd thing is that I don't know if I ever remember her having a name in the dream).  While this is not odd in and of itself,  what made this dream somewhat different was that about 3/4 of the way through it she realized she wasn't real.  She and I both knew she was a dream, and that our time together was only going to last until I woke up.

The last thing I remember of the dream is holding her while she cried and said "Please, daddy.  Don't wake up.  Not yet."

Another interesting thing about this is that I was woken up not by my alarm clock, but by my son's.  Not only was I profoundly sad when I woke up I was also slightly angry with him for cutting my time short with her.

Clearly I'm fully awake now and the dream is slipping away, but I still have this feeling like I lost something wonderful this morning....but it's something I never really had in the first place. 

How odd is that?

What's even odder is the fact that I was going to just write about this on my Twitter, but something inside me said that she deserved more than a 140 word recollection.  That her online eulogy not be condensed for quick reading.

So...yeah.  I've sat here and tried to think of some poignant way to wrap this up and it isn't happening. 

I fully intended to start this post off by talking about how I usually don't talk about politics, but then I realized I'd sound like everyone else in the blogosphere recently who has posted about how they usually don't talk about politics and proceeded to do so.  We're less than two months away from a Presidential election.  Like it or not, we all talk about politics at one point or another.  The question becomes whether or not we wish to actually have an open and honest debate on the subject or if we're so mired in our own beliefs that we cannot even hear an opposing view without feeling threatened our taking it personally.

Up until Wednesday, I had never served on a jury before.  I've been called once, shortly before Alex was born, but at the time I was working in a strip club and I'm pretty sure I did not match the criteria of "upright citizen" that they seem to go for in these things.  Twelve years and a fairly major shift in pay grade seems to have changed that, though.

So now that the month of vacations is over and I'm re-establishing a somewhat normal pattern around the house I decided to be Mr. Productive today and get some stuff done around the house.  Well, that was my intention at the beginning of the day.  I ended up being delayed in the morning by several hours due to the fact that there was yet another scammer trying to get our Member account information this morning.  It's the second one in a week!  Last week it was a pretty elaborate phishing scam, but this week it was automated calls that were asking folks to call another number and enter their credit card information!   I had originally intended to hit Home Depot early this morning, but I didn't get out of the house until around 12:30 becuase I was was waiting for official word on what we should post on the web site.

Well, the month of August has finally come and gone.  Convergence 14 is done.  Gen Con is done.  Dragon*Con is done.  I've blown through the large majority of my vacation hours and maxed out several credit cards. 

Was it worth it?