First Day Blues

I was just reading Steven Anderson's post on what people do on the first day of school.

Have I told you how much I hate the first day?  Days 2 and 3 (and so on) are fine, but I absolutely detest the first day.  It's not even the physical aspects of it - I have to get up before the crack of dawn (instead of sleeping until 8:30 or so) and it's usually 90+ degrees in an un-airconditioned school.  My nightmares start in August (though they came early this year) and miraculously end after that dreaded first day.

I hate going into my classroom and having 12 - 30 unfamiliar kids stare at me.  By 7th period, they've heard the "spiel" 5 - 6 times already... what are your names? here's where you're going to sit.  here are my rules.  blah. blah. blah.  I usually go for 20 minutes or so (with the previously mentioned boring stuff) and then give them something mathy to work on.  For Algebra 2, a solving equations review.  For Precalc, a factoring/solving quadratics review.  (For Algebra 1 - who knows?)

I have a survey embedded on my class blogs that I'm going to get the computers in class for the kids to fill out (therefore showing them that there is a class blog, so someone isn't surprised by it in April (true story)), but I don't think I want to do that on Day 1.  I'm thinking more along the lines of Days 2 and 3 (depending on how many kids are in the class - our mobile carts only have 15 computers in them).

I want to get beyond the boring.  Does anyone out there do anything fun?  I want to keep the math in it, but how can I make this a class that after day 1 they're excited about coming to?