As part as the Bar Code Art project, I made my own bar code which represents my name, location, height, age, and weight. Discounts will be given for bulk purchases.

In part of my ongoing series of All New Things that are meant to quell my ever-bubbling sense of liberal guilt, today I flew for the first time having purchased carbon credits. The idea is this: My big ol’ jumbo jet is polluting, so I get a few credits, and somebody somehwere plents a tree or something, and the earth balances out. And maybe now Al Gore will stop drunk dialing me in the middle of the night, accusing me of raping the environment. It was consentual, Al! Jeez.

Also, for another buck or two, I got this snazzy tag which showed off to the world that I was Greener-Than-Thou:

I put it on my luggage. Then I realized how incredibly pretentious and self-serving it was, and took it off again. But at least i’ll always have that photo, and the feeling in my heart that I’m better than every other passenger on that plane.

Mustaches and kids. Normally the two do not mix. You do not want a man with a mustache around your child. Equally, if you have a mustache, you do not want to be around children. They tug on your mouth-brow with sticky candy-laced fingers.

But today I took a brave step in bringing mustaches and kids together by joining Mustaches For Kids. It’s a fundraising effort in which people (mostly guys, although Frieda Kahlo types are welcome) take sponsors to grow mustaches for a month. The money all goes to a children’s charity - in this case, the LA Big Brothers/Big Sisters program. Think of it like a marathon runner getting pledges for running. Only instead of miles, the pledges to towards my upper lip growing a real soup-strainer.

I am, of course, seeking sponsors. So far, those who I have told about this have only responded with a quizzical look or, at best, a raised eyebrow. A few friends who I was able to convince the group is real turned around and offered me money to not grow a mustache. With good reason - my patchy and light-colored facial hair makes me look at best like a weaselly character from a silent film, at worst like a pederast.

But I am gonna do it, and I’m determined to raise a lot of money. I might not be getting any dates over the next thirty days, but I’ll be helping children all the long. Children who one day, once I’ve shaved, may introduce me to their hot older sister.

If you’d like to donate (and remember, this is legit) email me at suggestions at allnewyear dot com. Thanks!

My new thing today is actually time three - thanks to a ridiculous sale at LA Eyeworks I now have three all new glasses to put on my nose/ear glasses-holders.

With many thanks to Emily and Kate, and apologies for the poor audio quality…

I have friends who do not sit on toilets. These are the sort of people who carry Purel and obsessively hand-sanitize, who make you feel guilty for not realizing there are millions of tiny germs everywhere, plotting elaborate D-Day invasions into your body. And these are the people who crouch.

I didn’t know until recently this was an option. But apparently with enough fear in your heart, and strength in your calves, you can hover above a toilet, saving yourself from deadly butt-germs. At home, presumably, these people rest on their heineys like commoners (after thoroughly scouring the toilet seat, of course, for the aforementioned butt-germs). But at work, play, whatever they squat and hover.

So today I decided to simply poo without touching the toilet seat. I found that my legs felt weak before the “event” even had a chance to start. That despite being a mere inch away from the toilet, i was unduly concerned with aim. I was certain somehow I would miss altogether and my new thing would be “pooping on the floor.” Luckily, with aim worthy of William Tell (although I’d hate to be the kid with the apple on his head for this one) I managed.

In the end, (pun fully intended) I do not see the need to squat. I have been a sitter for all of my life, and it does not seem to have affected me adversly. And if I am infested with Butt Germs, so be it. They are welcome in my body. There’s enough Opus to go around.

As many of you know, I make my living as a comedy writer. I work for a show called Lil’ Bush, which is an animated satire of some guy who happens to president of some country or another. I’m not really that well informed on the issues.

Earlier this year my show, as well as almost every other show on Comedy Central, decided we wanted the benefits that being in the writer’s guild would provide us. As a cable TV writer, I am not very well compensated for my work. I don’t have health insurance, there are no minimums that they must pay us, and I most certainly won’t see any cut of the show being sold online or on DVD. It’s the best job I’ve ever had, but that doesn’t mean I should settle. My work makes some people millions on millions of dollars. I feel like I deserve my minuscule slice.

One of my all new things I kept a secret, because I was worried about repercussions. Basically, I (and a few dozen other writers) called in sick, for several days actually, in an attempt to let the network know that we were serious about our desire to get into the guild. I could have been putting my career on the line - I was worried that I’d never work for Comedy Central again.

Well, in the end, there was a bit of good news/bad news. The good news is, Comedy Central let all live-action shows into the guild. The bad news: I am not a writer for a live-action show. I’m not sure why the fact that I write for a little stubby cartoon boy is different than the guys who write for David Spade (who is, let’s admit it, a little stubby cartoon boy) but somehow it was. In the end, every other show got to go into the union - and that included some friends of mine, and I was very happy for them. But I was left without a guild.

Now, the guild is on strike. Weirdly, the reason we were left out in the first place - that we were animated - is allowing us to continue to work. While I’m happy to be employed, I really think the things that writers are fighting for are important. Writers tend to get boned in hollywood: we’re not as forceful as directors, as attractive as actors or as slick as producers. Now writers are united, with a lot of directors, actors, and producers supporting us, to try to make sure we get a fair share of the profits that our words help create. I’m still not in the guild, but I’m still a writer, and I want to make sure writers get a good deal.

All of this long-winded intro was a way of explaining my All New Thing: I bought pencils. Okay, granted, I’ve purchased pencils before in my life. But this time I purchased as part of the Pencils 4 Moguls campaign (apparently named by Prince) - in which everyday folks purchase pencils to send to the networks heads in order to demonstrate their reports for the writers.

Got a couple of bucks? Buy some pencils yourself. It’s the liberal guilt triple-shot: helping the little man in the struggle against big business, they’re made of sustainable forested wood, and after the network heads are done being shamed by them, the moguls are (hopefully) going to go with the suggestion that they are donated to non-profits that help kids learn how to write. Hopefully any of those future kid writers (who I assume will be all wearing jet packs) will benefit from the deals we make today.

Donate!

i was excited about tonight’s event - my friend Jackie was having a birthday party at a bar that offers Turtle Racing. Yes, that’s right. Wee little turtles you can “rent” and race against friends. I was looking forward to this. I planned to call my turtle “Jockamo,” as in, “Go, Jackamo, go!”

(As a side note, I’d like to point out that during my all new year, I have watched the races of horses, dachshunds, and pigs. Must investigate further.)

Unfortunately, at the last minute, the party plans were changed from the turtled racing bar, to a bar where the only racing involved to the bottle of a mug of beer. Which actually was okay with me - i was feeling a bit under the weather and staying home seemed to be a good idea.

When I was broken into last month, a bunch of stuff got stolen, and even more stuff got tossed around. I am guessing the robbers held out at sack, threw my stuff into the air, and kept whatever landed inside. One of the tossed-but-not-taken items was an external hard drive that I kept my backups on. So for today’s new thing, boring though it may be, I got a new hard drive and using apple fancy-ass new “Time Machine” backup system, I backed up my hard drive. I think we can all be grateful that my 8th grade poetry files are now safe and secure.

And I’m going back for turtle racing. Have no doubt about that.

–opus

One thing about all new year that has changed my life is my newfound instant answer to any question is almost always yes. Previously I’d hem and haw and say I should check my calendar. But today, when my friend Anne asked if I’d like to go to a Clippers game, I said yes immediately. Then I asked her if we could paint our faces, which she took as a joke, but it wasn’t.

I’m not a sports fan. I’m a geek in the old-school sense of the word; I never took to physical activity, and when others were watching or playing games, I was usually reading crappy paperback scifi novels. The last time I had been to a basketball game was probably in middle school, when I watched from the eye-holes of the huge plastic mascot head that I was in. I convinced myself that I could affect the scoring with my brain, and when the opposing team went up for a shot, I’d concentrate mightily and if they missed it, I’d think, “I’m totally winning this game for our team and nobody knows.”

Since then I’d avoided most sports, because I don’t know a lot about them, and don’t really have the desire to learn. I like sitting with friends and watching a game - it’s a fun social event - but I’d never watch one on my own. I have to say that watching a game in a stadium is a lot like watching in somebody’s living room, it’s just that the living room is filled with thousands upon thousands of people.

People oddly had no qualms in yelling, screaming, muttering or discussing their reactions to what was going on in the game. The guy next to me looked tough but spoke like Latka from Taxi, and every once and a while I’d hear him say, seemingly to himself, in a frankly adorable accent, things like, “Oh, no, meester. Not in my house.” and “Come on, dee-fense, dee-fense!”

Others went further - one guy near us would stand up at every foul point shot and yell frankly personal things at the players on the court. I realized that heckling in his style probably involved quite a bit of research. More than I was willing to put in.

The same mid-game boredom set in, as does any time I try to watch a sports game, and I would find myself looking at cute girls in the crowd. Then I’d think, sure, she’s cute, but what would we talk about? She knows ways more about sports than I ever would. Then something would happen on the court and I’d snap my focus back and instinctively clap.

All in all, my first professional basketball game was fun, and I do like any excuse to scream in public, but not something I’d make a habit of. Besides, I gotta find something new to do every day. I don’t have time for basketball. Not in my house, meester.