There’s an entire category on Yahoo! for animations based on misheard lyrics, and boy does that make me happy when I’m bored. My absolute favorite in this category is “Let the Bodies Hit the Flo!”, misheard and animated by Kimbo.

There’s a Hallmark Fresh Ink greeting card that says:

[Outside:]   If you drink 8 glasses of water a day, like they say to…
[Inside:]   Your new hobby will be peeing.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s so true. Every time I bring a water bottle to work (either 16- or 20-oz.), I have to pee at exactly 10:30am and again at exactly 11:30am. How weird is that?

Hey, pop quiz:

1. Do you have a high-speed internet connection (or a plain old modem and several minutes of free time)?
2. Do you have either headphones or speakers?

If you answered “Yes” to both of these questions, you should immediately visit Punk Kittens. I would definitely recommend it if you are a cat person, whereas I would definitely not recommend visiting Mr. Johnson if you are a cat person.

If you don’t like punk music, though, or if you prefer pachyderms over felines, you might like something classical, such as Pavarotti Loves Elephants.

There was fog tonight on Newport, and that made me happy.

I don’t know why fog makes me happy. It’s one of the few things in nature that has an effect on me, and I think it’s because being in the fog makes me feel like I’m flying through the clouds.

I remember liking it since I was in first grade. Our playground was really huge, and when it was foggy, you could get lost in it.

The whole show is blocked, right on schedule, except for the last two lyrics of “Side by Side” (the lyrics, of course, are “by side”). We only got three-quarters of the way through it on Monday, so we tried to finish it last night at 9:30 because we finished all our actual blocking (including bows) way early. But when 10:00 rolled around, we were still a few measures from the end, so Ron stopped us and said we’d have to finish it Friday. Stupid song is the bane of my existence now.

Whenever I hear a commercial
For mountain spring water,
I see this cartoon in my head…

A bottle of water with a spring on its bottom
Is jumping over a mountain,
Going, “Yippee!”

Actually,
I don’t normally imagine the “Yippee!” part,
But I did this time.

Did you?

We were watching Monsters, Inc. at Jonathan’s house, and it came to the scene where an octopus-like monster is preparing several dishes simultaneously at the sushi restaurant using his many tentacles.

So Jonathan said, “I wish I had more than one arm.”

I’m thinking about why birds chirp. Amie says it’s because they’re hungry, but I don’t think that makes sense. There’s no reason for them to make a noise because they’re hungry unless they’re baby birds and they want their mother’s attention. When they’re adult birds, chirping for food would be like us standing in front of the microwave saying, “Make me dinner! Make me dinner!” And that’s just silly.

So the only good reason I can come up with is that they’re marking their territory. They want other birds to hear them and understand that. So I suppose that in bird language, “chirp” actually means… um… “My tree.”

Like this: (Real Audio) (Windows Media)

But then again, I know for a fact that they chirp during mating season too. I assume that the chirp sounds different during mating season, because it doesn’t make sense to attract members of the opposite sex (no offense to any gay birds out there) by saying, “My tree” (no offense to any dendropheliacs out there).

So I think that when they’re mating, they have a different chirp. For the sake of clarity, let’s call this other chirp a “tweet” instead. And in bird language, “tweet” actually means… um… “Nice shoes, wanna fuck?”

Hm. Birds don’t wear shoes. Damn. So in bird language, I guess “tweet” would have to mean… something different… like, “What’s your sign?” Oh wait! Even better: “Hey baby.”

Like this: (Real Audio) (Windows Media)

The book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean is the true story of John Laroche, a Florida man who is obsessed with orchids.

Anyway, apparently The Orchid Thief was supposed to be adapted into a movie by screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. But he had so much trouble writing the screenplay, he decided instead to write a screenplay about himself trying to write the movie of The Orchid Thief.

The result is Adaptation, written by Charlie Kaufman, directed by Spike Jonez (who directed Being John Malkovich), and starring Nicolas Cage as Charlie Kaufman, Meryl Streep as Susan Orlean, Chris Cooper as John Laroche, and Nicolas Cage (again) as Charlie‘s twin brother, Donald.

Are you dizzy yet? I am. And I can’t wait to see it.

Writing, for me, was all about pain.

Obviously if you’re in emotional pain, you have something to write about, but I meant physical pain. My right ring finger hurts when I write. And I think that’s why it’s easier for me to express emotion when I write than when I type. Typing is quick, smooth, and easy. I can type at least three times as quickly as I can write. But writing is so much more… painful.

And that pain acts as a motivator. It’s a restraint, and restraints breed creativity. If ever word hurts, I choose them more carefully. If I write slowly, I forget the unimportant ideas and leave them out. I’m left with just what I wanted to say.

I used to write all day long, everyday when I was in school. I also used to write all day long, everyday when I was on vacation. I bought those micro-perforated three-hole-punched college-lined one-hundred-sheet Mead notebooks and filled them up using the endless supply of silver Parker Jotters from my parents’ house.

When I wanted to write big, I wrote big. When I wanted to write soft, I wrote soft. And when I wrote hard, it hurt more. Feeling everything I wrote, physically, in my hand, made me care a lot more about what I was writing. Seeing every word in my awful, ugly, childish handwriting made it seem so much more effective.

Now I’ve become accustomed to typing, and all I ever write is my name or the tip and total on a charge receipt. And I think that’s sad.