I was checking some really old messages that were sent to my Stewart/Colbert profile and there was one from December 18, 2007. Today is February 7, 2008. I’ve been watching episodes of South Park that I set into motion about an hour ago. These are completely unrelated things and there shouldn’t be any connection except coincidences. But this one, aside from being weird, is really remarkable.

The episode I was watching is “Imaginationland (Episode II)” and there is this unsurprisingly wacky storyline involving the imagination. At one point there is a monster (one of dozens) that is half bear and half man-pig (which means it’s half bear, one fourth human, and one fourth pig). At the exact moment I heard them talking about the man/bear/pig thing and while it was on the screen (for about five seconds), I suddenly opened a message from someone in MySpace that was asking me to join the ManBearPig Awareness Group.

On top of that, while I was just typing that last paragraph, the ManBearPig showed up on the screen again, this time on episode three of the so-called Imaginationland trilogy. As I was typing the phrase ManBearPig Awareness Group at the end of the paragraph, the scene showed a cartoon version of Al Gore trying to raise awareness of ManBearPig.

It’s just a coincidence, I know…but it’s a strange one.