"What do you want to be when you grow up?" they'd always ask me. And my response would be: "An inventor!"

My youthful dream was to live in a "gadget house." Sort of like so many movies from the 80's, such as Doc Brown's house from the first scene of Back to the Future 1: Gizmos, gadgets and robots running everywhere.

I have always loved ideastorms: when some notion comes into my head and tickles me with it's newness, it's unprecedentedness. Usually these things are silly and unlikely, but I like to think that some of them are so silly and unlikely that they could catch on. Like post-it notes, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, hubcap spinners or genetic engineering.

When I was a kid, I invented a dozen unique games: non-linear board games involving collecting objects from around the board while trying to steal your opponent's objects. And outdoor games which combined the passions of finding/hiding flags and throwing grapefruits at your friends. Once I invented a card game (based on glimpses of my older brother playing D&D with his friends) which was very similar to Magic the Gathering which debuted years later. It was called something like "Monster Fight," and my mom even helped me go downtown to the courthouse to copyright it.

As I grew up, everyone kept asking, "What do you want to be?" I had no idea because I didn't know of any jobs that harnessed, essentially, my desire to invent crazy crap.

When I was in high school my loving mother sent me a research institution whose aim was to pinpoint one's natural abilities, or aptitudes. There were hours of tests. From obvious things like, "Match these 50 esoteric words with their meanings," to weird things like "Pick up these small metal pegs with these tweezers and put them in these tiny holes. They had a neat task to test 3-D conceptualization called the Wiggly Block, where there was a block of wood, exploded into wiggly pieces, and you'd have to re-assemble it into a cube shape.

Long story short, I scored low - average on every test except three: vocabulary (which I was slightly above average), analytical reasoning (which is the ability synthesize disparate information) and something called "Ideaphoria" on which I was in the 99 percentile.

So. I'm clumsy at picking up pegs with tweezers, I don't have very accurate pitch recognition and I'm not a natural with numbers. But I can generate ideas quicker and better than 99% of the population, which I guess makes me pretty damn special.

Only problem is, there aren't many jobs which jive with this aptitude. Most jobs encourage you to follow the rules and keep your ideas to yourself. Working behind a checkout counter, someone with high ideaphoria wants to slit their wrists.

I'm happy to report that I have, indeed, finally found what I'm looking for. My current job (freelance Spanish tutor) is creative, but more importantly, it leaves me plenty of leisure time. Buckets of leisure time. I have so much leisure time I could bathe an elephant with it.

When some people get free time, they get bored. Without the structure of a job, they are just awash in some vast ocean. Not me. As soon as I can get my head above water, I'm working on building a raft out of seaweed.

But that brings me to the purpose of this blog, I guess, because I don't have the capability to actually do even 1% of the stuff I dream up. I don't know much about engineering. I don't own machines. I don't have money. But I do have ambition. And that's why I'm writing all of these ideas down now, so that one day, when I'm rich (cue inspirational music) I can hire an army of experts to make my dreams reality. I'll have engineers, lawyers and business people to build, patent and market my nutso musings. In the hands of every man, woman and child, there will be a Mobile Percussion Station and a Vibrating Fountain, maybe some Biggie Smalls Draws or a Tupac Jock Strap, a henna tattoo pen and a pair of Obama Pijamas.

Thank you for listening, and enjoy my blog. Sign up as my friend, leave me comments. I do so enjoy them.