I don't really think it's a demon that's possessed me, but I woke up this morning with a strange thought in my head, and I had to act upon it. See, I have my alarm set to go off at 7am. For some reason, the maker of the clock decided that 7 minutes was enough snooze time for anyone, and because of this, I usually actually get out of bed at 7:28.

There is an odd side-effect, however. I'm sure that people who use their snooze alarms notice this (especially this guy I knew in college who would snooze himself from 8 until 11), but you can have some pretty funky dreams in those small little segments of time. The best part about them is that they are so memorable.

Of course, the downside is that you never get the full picture. Like, Uncle Joe is about to tell you the secret of life, and BEEP-BEEP, you're grasping for the clock again. But I guess that's why they stick with you so well. The interruption triggers it.

So I had a dream between 7:21 and 7:28 this morning about creating a web site named Asymptomatic, subtitled "There's no intelligent life down here." I don't remember the exact content of the site in the dream, but I sure was adamant about it.

If only to expose the rest of my morning ritual to you, I should tell you about my morning showers. After sitting up in bed for a few minutes rubbing my eyes, I end up in the shower around 7:25. (For those of you paying attention, my bedroom clock is set 15 minutes faster than every other timepiece in the house.) Depending on what my sleep was like, what things I have to schedule throughout the day, and how much I've had to drink the night before, shower lengths vary from day to day.

Today's shower wasn't too much different from others in what goes on. Apart from the obligatory washing that takes place, I tend to think about my dreams or my plans for the day. My dreams this morning impacted my shower routine very distinctly. It was then that the idea for this site started to propagate.

I remember thinking that the site in my dream was an example of someone or something having intelligence. It was a statement against everyone else out there who would conform to ignorance, or catch some disease of malaise. (And by these terms, the conformists are the ones with the symptoms.) Maybe it's my statement of purpose not to catch the same "blah" attitude with everything that everyone seems to have these days.

Before you go thinking that I'm some kind of nut, it's not just based on the dream that I put this together. The dream was just the instigator. I was thinking in the shower about my life after college, and how much I've changed. I remembered things that I used to do all the time, and how I've become this strange, law-abiding, rules-following.... thing. I've become so uptight that I won't even get a refill from an iced-tea dispenser at a restaurant unless there's a sign that says "Free Refills".

Maybe it seems strange to you for me to come to a realization like this. Maybe it is strange. The fact remains that I've become a sort of rules stickler, which is something that I would have avoided totally in my college years.

I used to write all the time. Now I hardly write anything. I experience very little creativity anymore, when I used to brim with it. I think I'm generally a mean, cranky person in appearance, when I would really rather be (and usually see myself as) a nice guy. I've walled myself in with my own restrictions, and now I'm suffocating.

What does that have to do with this web site? Well, I guess my inner demons have gotten the better of me. I need an outlet. The two sites I maintain already are too restrictive. There's got to be creative flow. With this I can write about oompa-loompas if I want to.

So am I possessed by demons? Well, if I am, they sure have written more today for this site than they have for the other sites in months. They must be good. Hopefully, they'll share some more with us.