I'm not sure when or how it started, but sometime in the last eighteen (eighteen! I still can't believe I'm technically, if not actually, an adult.) years I began regularly formatting dialogue in my head. And I don't know if maybe I'm the only one who does this, because I'm sure it's an odd thing to do, but by formatting I don't mean just thinking up the words. I mean the punctuation, the occasional italics and ALL CAPS.
I'll hear someone say something - some meaningless sentence - and immediantly my brain goes into dialogue formatting mode and I'm trying to come up with a way to capture the sound (tone, inflection, volume, etc) of those words on paper. Adding commas and periods and semicolons where applicable, searching out that one word that seemed elevated above the others and making it italic.
It's an odd habit, I readily admit. But when I do finally get it right - I mean just right - the sense of accomplishment I feel is akin to how I felt the one (and only) time I successfully solved the Rubik's Cube, or when I would solve those brain teasers in Horizons. It's useless in everyday life of course, but still incredibly fun. For me, not necessarily for anyone else. (Oh, and Horizons: the advanced learning program my mid school had that I was in. Full of socially awkward geeks and I had more fun in that class than in any other, save for Academic Decathalon which was full of the same kinds of people, only older because by then we were all in high school.)
Oh, and PS. I've outlawed the word 'random' from my vocabulary. I used to love it but it's gotten to the point where I'm kinda starting to loathe it.