14/04/2002 - 9:28 p.m.

There is a season and a time to every purpose.

It hit a whopping 80 degrees here in DM IA today. It's April 14th, Spring is over and the Iowa Summer is here to stay. Just think, last week it was cold and rainy. I'm probably wrong, probably next week it will freeze or dump a blizzard on us. I really feel for our weather forecasters, I know that I say one thing is definately going to happen and then the weather defies all odds and does the opposite, how do you think they feel? Fancy equipment is immune to the weather gods. This is Iowa, we know that.

So, how would one enjoy this wonderful unofficial first day of summer when the ground is dry, the wind is gentle, and the sun is sparkling? By going to Merle Hay Mall of course! Yeah, that's what I did today. Screw all the parks full of kites and picnicers, let's go to the mall.

Needless to say it was empty. However, I got a brand new nifty watch. It's a plastic silver-y sparkly digital number that my mother is convinced will last me all of two weeks. (I don't care, it's pretty.) It's got a European Date Selector so that rather than having it read 4/14 it will read 14/4, which I enjoy immensely. It will run Military time, it's got an alarm, and something called a chronographer (???), and a light, and it'll tell me the day of the week, and it's water resistant to 165 feet, a 65 ft. improvement on the next model down.

I'm very impressed with all the nifty-ness I'm carrying around on my arm.

My last watch lasted me seven years (on three batteries). It was analog with a leather band and no nifty features at all. I'm really coming up in the world. The only thing my new watch doesn't do? I can't bring it back to life by voice command.

Yes, that's what I said. Trust me, I learnt this off a magician, it works. Take any old analog clock that won't work, hold it in the palm of your hand, count to three aloud and demand, aloud, for the watch to work. There's one catch, you have to believe it will work. The magician had kids do it, because they're less skeptical of magic, but it does work. I don't know how or why (though I would assume it has something to do with the power in a battery and a human's natural charge), but you actually have to believe it will work. I've tried it on skeptics, it doesn't work.

Proof that magic does happen, you just have to believe in it.