Why I'm Doing This

I'm pretty sure my family and friends think I'm crazy for attempting to do this. They're probably right. Instead of reading/watching everything The Daily Show's guests promote, I should be doing my homework, working on my senior project, applying for grad school, and working. But, you know, I got this idea.

It's all AJ Jacobs' fault. For those of you unfamiliar with the fella, he is a writer who often turns his life over to "experiments," such as following all the rules the Bible gives and telling the complete truth. Earlier this month, I was reading his book The Know It All, where he reads the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica in an attempt to become the smartest man on earth (A thoroughly enjoyable and interesting book-- you should read it). And I got to thinking, These experiments are kind-of like games. And I love games. I wonder what I could do.

That night (after watching The Daily Show), I came up with my plan. I did a little research, and learned the task was not going to be easy. In 2009, there were 160 episodes of The Daily Show. In those shows, 78 guests were promoting books, 22 were promoting movies, 16 were promoting TV Shows, 3 were promoting albums, 2 were promoting articles, 2 were promoting podcasts/radio shows, and 1 was promoting a website. The remaining guests were promoting ideas. But I had the idea, and I wasn't going to throw it aside because it was hard.

This year, I am going to read and watch all of those promoted things. And I'm going to review them here. It's probably not possible for me to get them all done in a year, but I won't quit until I've blogged about them all. I won't get to be as timely as I'd like. I'm a college kid with very limited funds, so I'll be getting the majority of the books from the library and seeing the movies in the cheap theater, which both involve waiting. Plus, there's the whole "finding time to do my actual homework" thing. But I'm going to do it, gosh-darn-it. And I hope you'll read.