Urgh. I hate it when I lie down "for just a few minutes" because I'm too tired to concentrate on work, and I wake up eight hours later, still partially clothed and with my mouth tasting like something crawled into it, died, and then laboriously crawled back out again. Guess it beats insomnia, but my mental clock still thinks it's yesterday, which is bad because I've got a lot of stuff to do today, including interviewing Dave McKean. I re-read his massive graphic novel Cages last night to prepare, and liked it better this time than the last time I read it, which I think was just after college. It made more sense this time. I'm still not a huge fan of his distorted line drawings, but I like his stories-inside-stories, particularly the one about the metaphorical bridge with two sons.

Random entertainments for a Friday morning:

Per Neil Gaiman's blog, a thoroughly entertaining photo-retouching portfolio, one of those mouse-over-the-image-and-see-what-these-people-really-look-like sites. I love these. I mean, on some level it's gratifying to know that none of the women on fashion-magazine covers are actually real, and they're all airbrushed and streamlined to hell. But mostly, the specific changes made to these photos amuse me. No matter how thin a woman is, apparently, she needs a tummy tuck. And rounder boobs. And shiny highlights on her skin, regardless of the lighting in the rest of the photo. But it's a coin-toss whether she needs more booty, or less. My favorite of these is the second from the right in the top row, where the retoucher went a little nuts with the breast-creating. Pity there aren't more retouched photos of men — the two included here don't seem to have gotten nearly as much bodywork, and I'm curious whether that's typical.

Per shihtzu, it's more hilarious Revenge Of The Sith mistranslation theater! Some of the same screencaps, plus a whole lot more. And here's a transcript of one segment of the movie, with a comparison between the actual dialogue and the distorted translation. Two squares fight the vehemence. The improbity fills the world!

A bunch of my LJ Friends are getting all squiddly over the extended Doom trailer, which leaves me all meh. I mean, the obvious nods to FPS games are cute, but where are the monsters? If I'm gonna go see a movie that's all about gunning down huge waves of monsters, I want some indication in the trailer that there are huge waves of monsters, not just brief lunging shadows. I'm not going to Doom to watch The Rock tote around a big gun, I'm going to see beholders. The fact that the trailer's so stingy with its monsters — and what you do see looks like a rubber Ghostbusters terror dog — thrills me not.

Finally, this Cat & Girl comic about how the Internet is a drunk librarian who won't shut up struck me as one of the cartoonist's more insightful recent observations. As usual, not much of a punchline, but the thoughts on our relationship with different media are interesting.

I'm a-hearin': "Prima Donna," "Phantom of the Opera" soundtrack