A new Halloween comic is up at Space Monkeys!.

Is there some sort of stress bug in the air this week? Is it the elections? People seem more freaked out than usual. And don't even get me started on the election. I'm just annoyed at all sides. The Bush people, the Kerry people, the Nader people, the people who don't care who you vote for as long as you vote, the people who are taking a bold "I'm not voting" stance to piss off the voter-drive sluts, the talking heads, the pundits, the pundit-pundits, the satirists, the columnists, the responders to the columnists, the assholes who content this election is no more contentious than past elections, the people who say this is the most important election of our lifetimes and the people like me who rant that they're sick of this election and can't wait for it to be over because really it's all about them. I hate all that shit. Bring on Wednesday.

Li'l Floaty Omie Head breaks it down in the XL Blog about Apple's new U2 special-edition iPod and Apple's prospects for the future. (pssst... they're really good).

Let me add this about iTunes: The best 99 cents you can possibly spend this week is on the song, "Jesus of Suburbia." Nine minute song, five parts -- you're getting, in effect, five songs for a buck! Dude, download it! In fact, a lot of the songs from the American Idiot album are paired up in continuous versions, so there's a lot of eight and nine-minute suites for 99 cents each. While you're there, get "Wake Me Up When September Ends," which is, in effect, the direct sequel to "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)." It'll at least wipe the latter from your brain for a little bit, since you probably got tired of it a long time ago.

Another Saturday trip and more house photos:



We weren't sure if this was going to be a good trip when we saw footprints on the ceiling. Then we decided it was kind of cool.



Doorway.



Future living room.



Living room ceiling. Those squares will be painted on the inside.



Future bathtub.



The living room looking in from the dining area.



They thought we were crazy when we asked for a glass panel that opens. Who's crazy now? BWAH-HAHAHAHA!



The office upstairs. Wife/spokesmodel not included.




The back. Tall, scary roof.



The view from the upstairs office.



Side view



Front view -- our pretty pile of rocks, soon to be on the house, around the lower edges of the stucco, which is now the actual color it's supposed to be.

I said I was already tired of the Ashlee Simpson story, but this one is too funny to pass up: Simpson Dad Blames Acid Reflux for Gaffe.

Acid Reflux? Seriously? That's the best you can do? How about inoperable throat cancer? How about larynx gout?

In related news: It's been discovered that Milli Vanilli were singing all along, they just had a really bad case of indigestion.

New Smallville recap is up:

Flash of the Titans -- The pint-sized version of superhero The Flash comes to town because he needs some friendship and maybe a few Rolexes. Lex finds an interesting manuscript (but not for this show), while Lana continues to investigate the mysterious tattoo on her back. Come on, just admit you were drunk, already.

I feel compelled to update because something in my little vain heart can't stand that the top item on my site today is a day-old thing about Ashlee Simpson that the media and everyone else and their chihuahua has already caught up with. Does that make me an Internet snob? Probably, yes.

I have some new house pics that will bore you death, probably, but not till later tonight. I don't have a way to resize or edit them right now, so I'll just have to do it later. But they put our colored stucco on the outside (it's a blue color called "Driftwood" with a "Moonlight" trim: gay and fab, yes, I know) and the drywall is up inside, so we know what the rooms are going to look like now.

Exciting. We've become the nitpicky home owners I always knew we could be. We called our builder and complained because the rocks piled in the front of the yard, to be used along the lower edge all around the house, didn't look round enough for us. We told them, "We thought the ones at the rock yard looked rounder than these." I guess that shows that the house is going well -- that our biggest concern is about the shape of some rocks.

I think I've got my Halloween costume picked out. We went to Goodwill yesterday and I lucked upon a purple robe that I will be employing to resemble a music figure that most of us (except Rebecca) know and love. My wife, meanwhile, tried to find anything resembling a costume and it just didn't work out. At various stages, she was going to be: Little Orphan Annie, a naughty nurse/doctor (to which she finally concluded, "I'm a pharmacist; why do I want to be a nurse for Halloween?"), a mod girl, Mrs. Furley from Three's Company and a Fairy Princess. At press time, still no wife costume yet. Although at one point we almost bought her a Kill Bill yellow jumpsuit.

I guess the Internet doesn't move quite as quickly as I expect it to on Sunday mornings, but if you saw Saturday Night Live last night and didn't TiVo past the musical performances like I usually do, you saw Ashlee Simpson get busted lip-synching. It was pretty obvious on the first song, but on the second song, her vocals came on before she did and she walked off stage as her band kept playing. At the end of the show, she offered a lame apology and blamed the band for playing the wrong song.

Expect to hear more about this in the next few days. So far I've only seen a few blogs here and there mention it. But her "Fans" on the official site are getting pretty ugly about it. Saddest one? The person who bought a bunch of expensive Ashlee framed posters on ebay. It's the younger generation's Milli Vanilla scandal.