From valentine's day dinner.....yum!

I was at David El and Alicia's New Years Eve party last night (great time, by the way) and I was chatting with Cliffhanger.
He said, "I was sitting around a few weeks ago, sort of watching tv with the sound off and then YOU came on." "What?"
"Yeah, I was sitting down watching with the sound off and you came on the tv. Talking about Rosetta Stone."
Lightbulb! I was chosen to be a spokesperson for Rosetta Stone in April and I filmed this TV commercial. I was flown down to LA a weekend in early april to film a commercial about Rosetta Stone. It was a lark -- something I believed in and a huge ego stroke to be selected. To get the part, I had to submit photos of myself (i just sent a link to flickr) and a statement about why I believed in Rosetta Stone -- which I do. I think its a great product. I got selected, flew in to film it, but sort of forgot about it.
At the time, they filmed me and 3 other people for this spot. When I filmed it, I had asked what would happen with it and they really didn't know. Apparently, they then send it off to post-production and from there -- well, its a commercial -- so they don't really have time slots for it. Honestly, you never know so I really had no idea that it was airing. I had also just come back from a trip to China the weekend that I went down to film it, so I thought I sounded really stupid when they were asking me all the questions that they did on-camera -- so I would have suspected that I wouldn't have made the cut. But apparently I did.
I had a possible sighting of the commercial about 3 months ago -- a bunch of unrelated people said they recognized me from television when they first met me but couldn't pinpoint exactly where they saw me. I mostly laughed it off since I do have a "famliar face" and its not terribly uncommon for people to think they've met me when I think we haven't. Well, this is a proof positive sighting. Cliffhanger would undoubtedly recognize me. Woohoo!
*I* want to see it now. Maybe its on youtube or I can get in contact with the production company that did the spot. They should know and it would be really cool to see it and know that a bunch of people who I've never met *will* in fact, recognize me from being a television star -- for 10-15 seconds or so. Its a start. :-)

Had CNN on tv today and up on the screen flashes........a dude I worked with at the Dean campaign! Garrett Graff.
Significant, but more so because it came on the heels of seeing *another* friend from the Dean campaign, Karl Frisch, on CNN, just a few days ago commenting as a Democratic strategist as well.
No doubt that we had the youngest, most committed group of Democrats and thus, hopefully, future leaders of tommorrow assembled at the Dean campaign when I was there -- there were say about 60-70 of us -- 25 or so committed democratic technologists (myself included) and probably at least 30-40 committed, extremely young political operatives. I have seen many of them go on to other campaigns -- other think tanks -- other positions within the democratic party over the past 4 years and the fact that these were (or now are) poised to become the leaders of the democratic party in the next couple of decades is intensely exciting.
One thing I can tell anyone who asks: that group was the smartest, most trustworthy, hardest working group of people I have ever had the pleasure to work with. They had/have great ideas and ideals tempered with unquestioned willingness to do the "on the ground" work to make this world more just and more successful for us all. If they do rise and further the mission that we conceived of at the Dean campaign, the future of America is in good hands.