The Year of... pardon?

While doing research for a film project, I discovered that 2008 is, among other things, The International Year of Languages, The International Year of Planet Earth (really!), The International Year of Sanitation, and the Year of the Frog. There’s probably someone somewhere whose job it is just to think these things up.

Trumping all of those is the fact that 2008 is The Year of the Potato, a piece of information so vital that it’s remarkable it slipped our attention. The reason that 2008 is the Year of the Potato and not the year of something actually interesting is that the United Nations, one of the hippest bodies ever created, wants to highlight “the potential contribution of the potato to defeating hunger,” as if the potato is about to organize a relief committee, like Herbert Hoover.

Now, I’m all in favor of defeating hunger, and I’m sure the potato has very good intentions and will be shortly putting out an instructional newsletter with pictures of the potato traveling to third world countries with Anderson Cooper and frowning at the horizon. I’m even more excited that I will soon be purchasing INSPI(POTATO), EMPOWE(POTATO), and DO THE (POTATO) THING shirts, and I’ll be sure to attend the approaching U2/potato world tour. I look forward to the potato changing our way of thinking. Ideally, I'm hoping Dan Quayle will be involved somehow.

To show my appreciation of the potato, here, on this site, I have added this, to increase all of our awareness of the potato.

We are all now aware of the potato. Hunger will be no more.

More Posting Tomorrow

There'll be more news up tomorrow, but for right now, here's the big news: I have completed and sent off a commercial for broadcast in the Houston area. As you can imagine, this is a massive deal to me, and I'm pretty awed by it all so far. If I can find out roughly what times it's going to play, I plan on staying up all night, or watching every single daytime soap that's on, whatever I need to do to in order to see it live.

You can see the commercial right now, though, at riseeaster.com.

Even if you don't do that, be sure to check out barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com, which just gets better the more you click.

And finally, I couldn't find a link, but congrats to Jay and Ryan, whose band, the 71s, was featured in the most recent issue of Relevant Magazine.

Let's jump straight to the pull quote

I keep promising to review everything I watch, and of course I never do, since I watch a lot of media and spend a lot less time blogging, and I write very slowly when I do blog. So let's do a bunch all at once. One sentence per:

The Wind In The Barley. Proves once and for all the Irish War of Rebellion was exactly the same as "Animal Farm."
"quarterlife." Being an unemployed artistic-type incapable of getting your life together is very, very, very cool.
Becoming Jane. Pride and Prejudice with a bummer ending, except knows that it's coming and it's like watching a very slow yet prettily-shot train wreck.
Philadelphia. 15 years later, it's still outstandingly powerful... how did Denzel Washington not get an Oscar nod?
"The Bronx Is Burning." Quietly addictive, it sneaks up on you - plus Daniel Sunjata as Reggie Jackson is hilariously on target.
The Darjeeling Limited - It has now reached a point in Wes Anderson fandom where his movies cannot just be funny, clever, and good, they have to be life-changing - which is a shame, because The Darjeeling Limited is funny, clever, and good.
Once - Like indie music, indie films have become a style (much benefitted by adding name actors and directors) rather than an actual accurate description, except for Once, which is quietly poignant both in spite of and because of its inexperienced actors and technical quality.
Across The Universe - Uneven yet loads of fun, it's a visual trip to watch and a joy to see Jim Sturgess and Joe Anderson tear their way through it.
The Science of Sleep - No one's better than Michel Gondry at this sort of thing, but working your way through the deliberate jerkiness of his storytelling style goes down sweeter when there's happiness and resolution at the other end, which wasn't the case here.

Well, that should cover me for now. Tune in later, as La Vie En Rose, Black Snake Moan, and Starship Troopers are all coming.

But can they chew gum, too?

Peracchio is reporting a story from London about how, in order to avoid the painful injuries caused by texting and not looking where you're walking, the government is padding every lampost and street sign with a protective mattress to keep people from banging their heads on them. This means we're only three years away from our first successful I-walked-into-an-
unpadded-lampost-and-
sustained-devastating-injuries lawsuit, which, as you can imagine, is going to be quite a fun day for all of us.

This comes on the heels of the alarm system I've seen on Volvo commercials recently (the BLIS, nicknamed "The Bliss"), which informs you if you're shifting lanes with someone in your blind spot and then drives the car back into the correct lane. It also sounds an alarm if you get too close to the car in front of you. That's right, America, we've given you permission to text while driving. It's okay! The car will take care of everything! Go ahead and tell your friend that you'll see her at 6:30, though you might be a little late. You're okay. The car's got you covered.

We're also only six years away from all carpool lanes becoming padded text-while-driving lanes. Safety first.

My New Favorite Website

This site is making the rounds, so you've probably seen it, but if you haven't here's the link. It's called "Stuff White People Like," and it is the single most painfully accurate jab at middle-class white culture that I have ever seen. This is a selection from "Being The Only White Person Around."

In most situations, white people are very comforted by seeing their own kind. However, when they are eating at a new ethnic restaurant or traveling to a foreign nation, nothing spoils their fun more than seeing another white person.

Many white people will look into the window of an ethnic restaurant to see if there are other white people in there. It is determined to be an acceptable restaurant if the white people in there are accompanied by ethnic friends. But if there is a table occupied entirely by white people, it is deemed unacceptable.

The arrival of the “other white people” to either restaurants or vacation spots instantly means that lines will grow, authenticity will be lost, and the euphoria of being a cultural pioneer will be over.

Being aware of this can be extremely valuable in your efforts to gain the trust of white friends and co-workers. If you bring a white person to an ethnic restaurant and another white person (or group of white people) shows up, you can lose all respect and trust that you have worked so hard to acquire. Do your best to find a table with a divider, or ask the waiter to put future white people out of sight.

Note: This does not apply to night clubs.

The site points out things that white people like which I have fallen prey to so wholeheartedly that I have expounded on them and sung their praises on this very website:

- Michel Gondry (I own that DVD set)
- Mos Def
- Studying Abroad
- Musical Comedy (I was pimping Flight of the Conchords, what, two weeks ago?)
- Knowing What's Best For Poor People
- Juno (four weeks ago)
- Irony
- Netflix (last year)
- "Arrested Development" (this Christmas)
- Assists
- Traveling
- Making You Feel Bad About Not Going Outside

And that's just a small sampling. I would say out of 80 posts so far, there are about maybe two dozen where I didn't go "Oh, I've done that," and flinch, and exactly zero posts where I didn't think "no, I don't know anyone like that." Check out the site, it's updated every day, unlike, say, this site, so there's a new post up whenever you check back in.