In case anyone wonders what I look like, here's an honest-to-goodness phone message my sister just left for me:

So I'm watching Silence of the Lambs on AMC right now and it's like watching you talking to some crazy man and it's freaking me out and I then thought we should go find the man who looks like Anthony Hopkins and have, like, you all dressed up in a really bad blazer talking to a guy behind a wall of glass, and then that would be the most epic freakout of all time.  Yeah that would be crazy.

Anyone know anyone who looks like Anthony Hopkins? 

Oh my, this is so delicious I had to share.

A contract for a health survey just came in.  Some Department of Something is doing a sexual attitudes survey.  Currently, the survey asks participants to answer items such as "My sexual knowledge and abilities are highly developed" and "I like learning about new ways to enhance my sexual pleasure."

They have hired an editor because these statements are "not specific enough" to get a good overview of sexual activity.  An actual health department has given me the go-ahead to be "specific" about detailed sex acts.

I have asked for clarification.  They said they didn't really know and that's why they needed help.  I'm now supposed to write "about a hundred" items which show exactly what people do in the bedroom.

If this wasn't already close to perfect, there is the eventual but inevitable joy of double-billing them when I follow their instructions to the letter and they have to come back for revisions to tone it down again.

Sometimes, right before I drop off to sleep, I have minor auditory and visual hallucinations.  Not dreams, but actual waking-state sounds and images that exist in my brain but also on the ceiling or perched beside me on the pillow.  These are usually extremely vivid and end when I sit bold upright wondering where the flaming Chinese dragon scampered off to.

These last few nights, I've been hearing a man's voice.  He's quiet and resigned, but pleading, and he keeps repeating, "Children... no. Children... no. Children..... no" in the exact tone of voice you'd use after you've tried to escape but the towheaded cherubs have finally surrounded you in the corn and have already thrown the first rocks.

You don't get back to sleep after something like that.  I am very tired.

How is it that when The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Troy hit the market at the same time, literary critics and the fandom alike lost their minds over the inaccuracies in LOTR but didn't give one whit about the adaptation of one of defining works of literature for Western society?

And now there's this.

Screw it, just gonna mind my own business and go back to making my Avatar fan art, kthanx.

Just a reminder for fans of comic art... the Comicraft Annual Sale is currently on!  $20.11 for all fonts in their catalog.  Mmmm, delicious, spiffy fonts...

Very, very brief navel-gazing ahead:

I think this is becoming my favorite time of the year, the time where nothing happens.  No real news, no Internet fluff, nothing.

Not that stuff isn't going on, and generally it's the same stuff at the normal pace that stuff typically happens, but it's stuff happening without a hearty helping of drama.  Life just is, news just is, weather just happens without an "-ageddon" affixed to its butt.  And we dial down our (weird) fixation with preserving sandwiches for posterity on Twitter and Facebook* or whatever.

I like to think this would be the norm if we were generally satisfied with our lives.

Oooh, lint!

*Morning edit: Realized this could be taken as individualized criticism rather than a general statement, so if you are a passionate Foodie then replace it with whatever socially-networked behavior you personally can't really wrap your mind around, such as texting while ignoring the person sitting across from them at the table, keeping a public list of whichever music has come up in a playlist, or something truly ridiculous like keeping a home-improvement blog.

Had a desperately boring erotic dream about Mike Rowe last night.  He kept telling me he was there to do a dirty job but kept cleaning the house.  I remember being furious and frustrated, but impressed by his deft handling of floor polish and his tile scrubbing techniques. 

None of that is a euphemism.

I vote.  I vote all the time.  And I tend to vote for Democrats because I agree with their social policies more frequently than I agree with those held by Republican candidates.  But were I a different person I would start voting for Republicans out of spite.

Click here to be irritated.

I'll just pretend this is brilliant social satire and go wash the shrill off of my eyeballs now.

Me: Check out this Craigslist ad I found for a Labradoodle...

Brown: Oh boy.

Me: "Andy is a 4 year old Black Male Labradoodle. He is close to 80 lbs. He is a great dog that needs to find the right home. He is a very smart guy and he gets bored easily if he does not have something to do. He is going to do best in a home that is active and will make him part of it. He does well with other dogs, kids but cannot go to a home that has cats. He is a love bug that does not know his own size. He has been in kennels all his life. He is kennel broke, so house training should not be hard. He is going to also need some work on his house mangers. He walks nicely on lead and knows sit and come. I wanted to start him on house manners and his basics. But due to healthy troubles I have not been able to do that. I have had him for 4 months, He has not been neuter yet. But I need to find him ASP. If you think that he might be the dog for you please let me know. His re-homing fee is $75."

Brown: That reads like a Carfax ad.  Massive water damage NEW UPHOLSTERY!

Me: I'm wondering what type of person thinks this might be the dog for them.

Brown: Whoever they are, they're on fire.

Oh DNC, thanks for your horrible, horrible conduct in this campaign.  I needed the aggressive attack ads, groundless accusations and fear-mongering, and complete disdain for your own party's supposed moral base.  For a while there, I forgot that you were no different from Republicans.

Ke$ha, your videos are an excellent example of what suburbia envisions as being cool, but it's a hard sell that you were bored with your friends and just happened to have a leopard lying around for one of your happy, quirky, spontaneous projects.  Or that you have a chainsaw that shoots laser beams.  Own that shit.