So, this is how it happens...

First thing I do today is wake up way too early.
Then I go back to sleep only to wake up way too late and dump myself in the bathroom for much needed hygiene action.
Toddy with rice milk and honey, yes? Yes.
And then, there is the internet.
In this order:
1) Facebook - to see how popular I am last night.
2) Twitter - to tell the world what my brain thinks and maybe even reply to other people's awesome even though I have no idea who they are, and/or everyone else has already responded because they are that well known.
3) Gmail - for Spam and the unlikely event of a pleasant email from friends who are, in actual fact, stupidly busy and anyway they call, so why write?
4) Google Reader - I love Google Reader. This is where my day actually begins. Comics, Blogs, Pictures and Quoted Passages passed to me with so little effort on my part that it is not entirely unludicrous. Something always catches my brain by the electric bits and I feel the overwhelming urge to tell Almost EVERYONE I KNOW about how someone not me wrote about Barbie or voting or shirtless hippies building islands that float about on plastic bottles that got thrown into the sea or public art. (I freaking love grafitti and public art and splattered paint and tape art and I even love Banksy)

Now, this is where The Daily Show comes in. Because, see, I've got my Facebook tab still open up there, so the (1) thing that happened to something that I did can validate me for the whole day. And, like everyone else, I've liked The Daily Show and so am invited to watch last night's episode in full! Whee!

I have such a reference crush on that show - they have excellent researchers and compilers. My brain wants me to make out with their research skillz. Madly. Over coffee. And maybe some pasta primavera (but only if it's from the Ren Fest at the Bellevue Berry & Pumpkin Ranch, cuz that was creepy good).

So, I'm watching last night's episode today, and two things happen: I remember why I don't interact with news media anymore (I hate them all and their total lack of perspective or history or sensible vocabulary) and I have a deep and abiding need to know a thing.

Here is the thing that I want to know: I want to know what the distribution of parties has been in Congress since the beginning of the country. Meaning: I want a map, or a table, or a pie chart of the party demographics of the 1st Damn Congress, and the 2nd, and the 3rd, etc., all the way to the 2nd Session of the 111th Congress. Because I am curious about just how much hyperbole and smoke-blowing-up-asses is afoot. It is entirely possible that all the of overblown rhetoric is  not entirely overblown. It's not probable, but it is possible.

And now I get frustrated: the website for The House of Representatives is mostly geared to the now, not the then. The Senate's website is similarly focused.
Okay, Library of Congress, then? Only the site is taking too long to respond today, and when I get to the place to search the Congressional Record, it only goes back to the 101st Congress.

My mother enters the dining room at this point and, like the totally self-absorbed ass I am, I start talking about how all I want to see is a map of representatives for each state. Google points me to GovTrack.us and their map. I've totally told Stumble about it. Because it is pretty cool.

Not cool enough. What I want looks like this: a timeline at the bottom with a dealie that tracks where you are on it as colors that represent the different political parties, move about slowly as the demographics of Congress are charted through time from 1789, on a map of the US.

Dear The Daily Show's research staff: please?

Also, um, could you, would you, write a book? You know, about how you find out stuff and things. I would totally read it. Probably I wouldn't buy it, because I am broke and poor, but I would suggest very strongly that my local library buy it and then I can check it out and read it and tell everyone that they need to read it to. And then you will have global respect, if not any riches or actual fame. But you could spread the message of "Do Your Fucking Research On An Issue, It Makes You Look Cool And Not Like A Blowhard."