I've decided to change my screen name. Why? Why the fuck not? I do what I want, when I want. I answer to no one. Not you, not my probation officer, no one.

I felt my old name lacked any real insight into my character. As anyone who's spent more than five minutes with me can attest, "Random Dan" is quite fitting. See, my brain is kind of like a giant game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. Millions of thoughts, ideas, facts and opinions rattle around my head like little marbles. Instead of four day-glo plastic hippo heads, each with their own "chomping action" paddle, I have about thirty, each manned by a blind, spastic chimpanzee. They swat at their controls with psychotic zeal, howling away and flinging feces at each other. Occasionally, one manages to grab a marble (usually Mr. Pepper, manning the orange hippo), but instead of being collected in a little cup, the marble/thought falls out of my mouth. After that, depending on my mood and state of inebriation, I'll begin to free-associate, not so much assembling straight chains of thought as a complex lattice or wicker chair. Ideas weave in and out of each other, intersecting but never really connecting. Then I get distracted, forget what I was saying, and the process begin again.

I'm better when engaged in a conversation. I can talk certain topics to death, going on and on long after everyone else has lost interest and moved on. In these modern times, what with the kids today with their Blackberries and IM-ing and their baggy pants and the Pokemon, conversation has almost become a lost art. "OMFG!" "LOL!" "BRB!" This is not a conversation, people. I fear the day I hear high school kids using chatroom shorthand to talk to each other. A recent Cingularrrrrr commercial pokes fun at this idea, but to me, the ad is a vision of a bleak, hellish future where everyone communicates in cute acronyms. I think things will be okay, as long as no one figures out how to use "smileys" and "zwinkies," or whatever the fuck they're called, in real life. "I met a girl! We get along great, and we're gonna get married!" "What's she like?" "Well, her avatar is really cute!"

I suppose I'm not one to talk. It's a lovely day out, a bit overcast, but comfortable. Where am I? Sitting around in my pajamas, writing this thing for people to read on the Internet. At least I'm using real words and putting some thought into grammar. And besides, I've been up since 6 AM, tending to a bunch of stupid, filthy animals and the horses they own. I can sit around in my jammies all damn day if I want. As previously stated, I answer to no one.

Keep it greasy, bitches.