Not too long ago, my friend Stuart sent me a beautiful photograph of a Icelandic mural depicting the correct way to tie a tie. Of course, I framed it and hung it on my wall. A few days later, it fell down, taking out a towel rack with it.

In watching TV, I couldn’t avoid a infomercial featuring this man:

Billy Mays - a man who has made a career on his enthusiasm and beard alone. His wide-eyed thumbs-up have sold cleaning and home improvement product on infomercials across the country. Apparently, Americans figure that his exhalations alone are reason enough to purchase a product. And apparently, I am not alone, because I purchased Hercules Hooks, mostly because I saw the hirsute wonder hawk it in between re-runs of Northern Exposure.

Which is why I found myself, camcorder in hand, in my bathroom, trying to hang up a photograph by my talented friend Stuart.

Here is what I found:

I did my best to make that video interesting for you people. I swear I did. I just spent two hours looking at footage of me focusing on a bare bathroom wall and trying to quip wise. The cliche of the paint drying would apply if the paint on this wall hadn’t dried years ago.

Long story short: the Hercules Hook may or may not work. I couldn’t even tell because the wall in question wasn’t appropriate. After a few moments, I realized that I had a shallow screw in a drawer which really would do the job that I hoped the fifteen dollar Hercules Hook was going to do.

Damn you Billy Mays. Your beard has hypnotized me, and gained another victim.

One of the newest sensations to sweep the internet is Twitter, a service which lets you send tiny status-messages to your friends. It’s like a micro-blog: one or two-sentence updates as to what you’re doing. Apparently, people really like it. And thanks to immeasurable help from my friend Dana, I have joined up for All New Year.

If you’re also on Twitter, please, add me and let me know. I’ll try to post as much as possible on my Twitter account to keep you updated on my All New Year adventures.

Well the idea seems to be spreading and I couldn’t be happier. I have discovered that Dani, a 14 year old in the UK, has decided to start and all new year blog as well! She says she’s lazy, and a teenager, and doesn’t expect the blog to last long, but I feel like perhaps the power of All New Year will take over and force her to bigger and better things. Give a look-see to Dani’s All New Year.

I also just saw a comment from the phenomenally-named Maximoo who points out a friend of his, Rachel, has started doing the same project. I’m not clear if it’s inspired by All New Year or just great minds thinking alike, but I say the more the merrier. If for no other reason than I can start stealing New Thing ideas. Rachel’s doing her project on a wiki which you can check out yourself.

If you’ve found yourself doing new things, either every day or just once and a while, please let me know by leaving a comment emailing me at opus at allnewyear dot com.

On memorial day, we remember those who gave their lives for this country by grilling things and eating them. I think our fallen soldiers would have wanted it that way. For me, I headed to the home of Tanya and Goodie, friends-of-friends who were having a BBQ.

Although at one point, before slicing into its tasty goodness, the host explained that the pork he had been working on could either be called “Pork Butt” or “Pork Shoulder”. The kids, apparently, were calling it “Pork Butt” because that was more fun to say.

I was expecting the smoking-for-19-hours pork to be my All New Thing, but when I got there I discovered something else. I have been going to parties and BBQ for years. When I was a child, I would pair up with other children and run around shrieking. Failing that, I usually brought a book. The grown-ups would stand around, sipping beers and wine, talking about grown-up stuff that bored me to tears.

As I got older, so did my peers, and even if we were sitting around sipping beers and wines, it still felt like the equivalent of running around in the backyard. We were kids, perhaps we were playing grown-up but with our two-buck-chuck and pabst blue ribbon, we weren’t fooling anybody, including ourselves.

But at this party - suddenly, it seemed, I was a grown up. We were talking politics. People brought and drank real wine and real beer. People had children of their own, and those children were the ones bored to tears by our conversation. But what was more shocking to me wasn’t being suddenly thrust into the grown-up table. It was the fact that I was more or less comfortable with it. As somebody who spent most of my adult (and child) life trying to resist growing, suddenly, here I was. A grown up.

But even if I was dealing with adults now, I still prefer to call it “Pork Butt.” It’s just more fun to say.

They’ve had these in Europe for years - tiny wee little cute-as-a-button Fisher-Price vehicles known as SmartCars. These tiny guys are made for city driving - they can fit in the itsiest bitsiest parking spots and get much better gas millage than your average car. I actually remember trying to figure out how to get one a few years ago, when I was in the market for a car and didn’t want anything too fancy.

Driving down Melrose avenue today I saw they were doing test-driving the SmartCars, so I figured I had no reason not to stop and give it a try. They’re set to be released in 2008 but they were trying to spread the good word early.

Please excuse my crappy cameraphone quality

Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to enjoy these adorable little cars, I couldn’t. As could probably be expected with a three-stroke engine, it didn’t have much pickup and took a while to get going, even on the backstreets. And the brake was worse - a seemingly binary system that was either stop or go, which made for a jerky ride. And talking to the test-driver guy, the SmartCar only got 40 mpg - not that much better than your average hybrid or even compact car.

Plus, driving behind a behemoth Hummer lugging nothing more than the driver’s ego, I felt particularly unsafe. Were that humvee to run into me, I was certain the driver would feel nothing more than a slight bump, and he’d shrug, turn up the Limp Bizkit he was listening to, and tool onward. So while driving the diminutive guys might seem fun, I can’t see myself plopping down any money on one.

I used to love Star Wars when I was a kid. I had the action figures and spent hours in my room, developing my own adventures. Eventually, however, Han Solo and Luke were kicked under the bed and my interest turned to other things. I didn’t even watch two of the three recent prequels. But the 9 year old in me is still thrilled by light sabers and space battles. So I headed out to the Star Wars Convention in downtown Los Angeles to see what I could find.

Hey gang. Rest assured, I did a “new thing” today, even though I was home sick from work. However, due to some delicate situations, I can’t quite reveal to you yet what it is. Nothing earth-shattering, but marginally interesting and hopefully beneficial. I’ll give you more details when I can.

All spy-like,

–opus

Last night I invited over some interested parties to break open the home-brewed All New Beer I’ve been working on. I was worried that a beer I cooked up on my stovetop and stored in used soda bottles would end up nasty, but on breaking the seal I heard the reassuring hiss of beer fizzing, and the delicious beer-y smell. For all intents and purposes, I totally had beer.

I had thought I was making an IPA, but the brew tasted more like a Heffeweizen. Lighty, wheaty - very nice for a hot summer day. It seemed to go over well with my friends, even my beer-geek pal Grant.

The “wet paint” sign is the set-up to a thousand vaudeville routines and silent film schtick. So when I saw one today on the wall at work, I figured, why not make it a part of the All New Year as well? With no turpentine in sight I strode up boldly and, with only a moment’s hesitation slapped my bare palm on the wall.

Alas, it proved anticlimactic. The sign lied to me - the paint had long since dried. Which is probably for the best, since I had no way of cleaning a wet painted hand. As those who have done nothing often say, it was the thought that counts.

Tune in tomorrow for the taste test of the All New Beer.

–opus