While working in my lab late one night, I was interrupted by Inga, one of my assistants.

"I didn't think you bought into that magic stuff", she commented as she walked into the lab.

"Huh?"

Inga pointed to the broomstick floating in the middle of the room.

"Oh that. It has a gravimetric propulsion unit, nothing magic about it. I'm running a test to see how long the batteries last."

Inga looked over the broomstick. "Planning to take advantage of the Harry Potter hype to market these?"

"No, no. That has nothing to do with Harry Potter. That's a Henry Putter Nimrod 2100 Personal Flying Device."

Inga spied another, sleeker, broomstick plugged into a wall socket, recharging. "So what's that one?"

"That's the deluxe model, the Flameball PFD. It will cost a lot more, but it's faster, more agile, and iPod compatible."

Ah, what a beautiful day. The sky is dark grey and stormy, people look depressed, and there's not a flower to be seen. I turn to my city manager, who is riding with me as I tour the city.

"Well done, Malphas. The city looks adequately depressing."

Malphas responds in his raspy voice. "There is more, take a left and see what was been done with the that flower garden in the traffic circle."

As suggested, I take a left and soon see what Malphas was talking about. There in the middle of the traffic circle is a 12 foot statue of me. I cruise slowly around the circle to get a better look.

"It's part of the new parks and rec program. We're replacing flower gardens and playgrounds with statues of you." Croaks out Malphas.

"The statues should be taller."

"Yes sir, I'll inform the parks department."

I drive on, and see some members of the ministry of happiness patrolling the streets. "How is the progress on complaints?"

"The ministry of happiness has nearly eliminated complaints. The last poll showed 100% of the survivors of the surveyed are completely satisifed with the job you are doing as mayor."

I start driving back to city hall. "I have another project for you Malphas."

Malphas comes into my office with a bunch of rolled up papers. "It's almost done mayor." He croaks out while spreading out the papers on my desk.

I look over the plans, while Malphas explains. "The dungeons go nine levels deep with each level stocked with progressively more dangerous creatures and traps. It's all first class goblin construction, we contracted with Goblliburton."

I smile as I look over the detailed maps. "Excellent work." I open the top drawer of my desk and pull out a crystal orb whose depths writhe with black fog. "This orb makes the weather dark and miserable, it sucks the happiness from the city, keeps flowers from growing, and makes puppies sad. This is what I want placed in the depths of the dungeon."

Malphas nods. "Very well. I have just finished interviewing some evil Dragons for the job of guarding the deepest part of the dungeon." He hands me the resumes.

I look over the resumes, noting the impressive hero slaying experience of both Nithhogr and Ancalagon. "So who came off better in the interviews?"

"I though Ancalagon really came off well, very menacing. Also he did really well in the dangerous breath test. Acid cloud, really awful stuff."

"Excellent. Have Ancalagon start immediately and take this orb to his lair." I hand off the orb to Malphas.

"One more thing, what about treasure? You know gold and jewels and such."

I wave my hand. "Oh just the usual, give each of the monster a little to carry and place some in chests though the levels. Just make sure that the lower levels have more treasure than the upper levels."

"Very good sir." Says Malphas as he leaves with the orb.

I mark another item off of my evil wizard to-do list.

"Hey, Bob! Where did you get this flier that says 'Adventurers wanted for new dungeon. Suprises galore, bring the kids!'?"

Out for a stroll, I trip over the tail of a Dragon. Funny, if I didn't know better, I'd say it was Nithhogr.

Nah... Any way you slice it, the beastie for damn sure left his tail in my path, and he didn't even say, "Excuse me."

Dragons. Think they own the road.

Well, just to teach him a bit of manners, I did a little whammy on him. Own the road, do ya, big guy? One good blink, and all his pretty scales are covered in tar.

Gonna need a lot of WD-47 to get that out of your scales.

Sang Sacre Local Newcast...

Today in an unexpected move to boost public morale, the ministry of happiness has made laughtracks mandatory in all TV shows. TV shows that do not have laughtracks will be modified before local broadcast. This change will be effective immediately.

AhHaHaHaHaHaHa hee hee Ha Ha Ha ha

Now for the weather

Oooooooooooooooo! Ha Ha

No change in the weather as it will continue to be dark and stormy for the foreseeable future with highs in the mid-40s

AhHaHaHaHaHaHa hee hee Ha Ha Ha ha

In sports, there's good news for the Sang Sacre Dragons as the MRI on their starting Seeker...

I chamber a shell into the shotgun, but Bob catches my arm before I can aim.

"Don't shoot the TV," he says calmly.

"Laugh track! On the news! Happy smiley perky people!"

"I know, sweetheart, but you can't shoot the TV. You won't be able to watch your new Angel Season Ten DVDs if you do. And I know you want to watch the Subtext Becomes Text episode where they find Angel and Spike in the shower together."

"You're right. I should go down to the studio and shoot the happy smiley perky people in person."

"Right--um, wait. I'm fairly sure I should object to that for some reason. Give me a few minutes."

I half listen as Malphas finishes his report on the dismal and excellent state of the city.

"Very good. What's next on the agenda?"

"Vengence." Says Malphas, reading from his PDA.

"Good. I have decided it is time for my old enemy MiracleMan, to feel my wrath."

"Do you want me to hire a hit-demon sir?" Asks Malphas.

"No. I have a better plan, one that will strike at the very core of his being."

(buh-buh-bum!)

Right in the middle of a conversation with a ministry of happiness member, I'm interrupted by a police officer entering my office. My his manner and appearence I can tell he is one of the old officers left over from before my reorganization of city services.

The police officer walks up the desk, he appears a little nervous, but determined. "Sorry to interrupt, but I've been hearing about these new regulations and they are...well I don't think the police are going to want to enforce then. Maybe the new guys, but they're....different. I just think..."

I interrupt him. "The ministry of happiness will handle enforcement."

"Oh." He looks over to Mary, the ministry of happiness member I was talking to. She's a petite woman, attractive, scrub, and tastefully attired with a pleasent smile and dead eyes.

"No offense to the ministry, but don't they usually just hand out pamplets and stuff."

I shake my head. "I don't you think you realize just what they are."

"But people are going to resist this, you can't just let a bunch of..." He goes on.

I interrupt him again. "Kill her."

His eyes widen, "What!?"

"You want to see if they can handle resistence. So try to kill her." I point to Mary who is still smiling pleasently at the police officer.

"I can't do that. You're crazy." His eys dart between Mary and I.

"I quite agree that you can't do that. But if you want motivation..." I turn to Mary. "Dispose of the officer Mary."

I use a charm to protect my ears from the gunshots and screams as Mary takes care of the situation. Just as well to root out problem personal in the police force. Once Mary is finished, I page someone to take care of the mess and Mary and I go find a conference room to hammer out more details.