Rumors of the death of the over-extended metaphor have been greatly exaggerated

I've been slacking off on my Erin O'Brien hype-boy duties. So when I was doing the daily Google Reader dance just now, and I saw Ed "The Red" Champion toss out a seemingly disposable comment about writers and honesty, and then a bit later I saw this post of Erin's, which ends with about as honest a statement as can exist on this level of reality; well, let's say that it was as if a thin layer of the universe had momentarily peeled back, revealing two dots embedded in the fabric of existence, one labeled "1", the other labeled "2". And here I sit, armed with a thick blue Laddie pencil, and the task of connecting them to reveal a hidden picture of awesome.