What has commercials and the media in general taught us this year, Sarah Haskins asks? Sandwiches are for boys! And showing your butt is always hilaaaarious.

Every Sunday, we’re going to pick out just some cool, interesting videos and stories we’ve found over the past week.

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People Eating at the Farmer’s Market in Los Angeles… it’s not as boring as it sounds, but you’ve gotta have the sound on.

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A little info on how the Obama logo came to be; I kinda like the one with speech bubbles, but I could see how that could be a problem for Obama — people could say he was all talk, and likely no action.

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Greeks rioted in the street after a 15-year-old was killed by police in a scuffle. Athens is in shambles.

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MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski was mugged outside a Washington, D.C. hotel while waiting for a car to pick her up for the 6 a.m. broadcast of’Morning Joe.’

The mugger shook her down for $6. She said after her appearance that she felt “great!!”

And of course, her co-host Joe Scarborough raised a ruckus, demanding the mayor of D.C. provide some answers concerning the safety of his city, because he’s finally concerned with the rate of crime in Washington, D.C.

Yes, it sucks that she got mugged — or, as Gawker said, over-aggressively begged to — but, I doubt she really has an awesome “I WAS MUGGED!” story to tell the grandkids…

According to a new Neilsen survey, we watch online videos the most when we’re at work. 65 percent of online video viewers watch stuff between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Where are we most likely to go for our “LOL” fixation? YouTube, of course. Rounding out the top 10 for October were Fox Interactive, Hulu (probably for all the pre-election SNL stuff), MSN/Windows Live, Nickelodeon Kids/ Family Network, NBC Universal, Yahoo!, ESPN, CNN Digital Media, and MTV Networks Music.

The survey shows a 3 percent dropoff in viewers total for online video between September and October — probably because there are less people working…

Well, if you’re at work, and you need soooooomething to watch, here’s another take on Beyonce’s “Single Ladies,” except freaking adorable:

Photo by O Paisson

Oh yeah, we’ve all been weary about this $700 billion bailout fund, doling out cash to banks and creditors, but the cumulative amount that U.S. taxpayers will end up paying for all in the end will be $8.7 trillion, according to Politico.

- $1.5 trillion in FDIC loans (including $139 billion to General Electric)
- $1.8 trillion in cash, tax breaks and loans to taxpayers, banks, lenders, and credit companies
- $300 billion for homeowners from the Federal Housing Authority
- $25 billion for American auto companies to greenify their cars (that’s separate from the bailout coming from the White House sometime soon).
- $5 trillion from the Fed in new money, loan guarantees, and loosened lending requirements

The New Deal cost an estimated $32 billion ($500 billion in today’s dollars). If you combine the New Deal with the adjusted costs of the Race to the Moon, the savings and loan crisis, the Korean War, the Iraq war, the Vietnam War and assistance for NASA, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Marshall Plan, it still all adds up to $3.2 trillion, not even half of this new price tag.

To put that in perspective, the ENTIRE United States government operating budget, the money that is used to run our federal agencies, is $1.182 trillion. That’s salaries, special projects, every department (like interior, defense, state, education, etc.). That figure doesn’t count taxes/ revenue or the national debt ($10 trillion).
While some of this bailout money is seemingly necessary, I can’t help but think about the amount of people that $8.7 trillion could feed, or the number of people who could get a first-class education, or the number of small businesses that could be launched, or the amount of renewable energy systems that could be produced, or roads fixed, bridges built, or (effective…) health care distributed; and so many other things.

Photo by Ori2Uru

If you’re a Catholic like I was raised, you may feel like establishing New Year’s Resolutions are a lot like giving something up for Lent: you feel a guilt-feuled obligation to set one, and in about 40 days, it’s over anyway.

Last year, I decided not to do New Year’s Resolutions. Instead, I followed Trent’s advice of instead establishing goals. I guess that the tangibility of actually checking off “Run three races” is a better strategy than just declaring at the beginning of the year, “I’m going to lose weight!”

I made five goals, and ended up accomplishing all but two; I haven’t lost any weight, and the economic crisis has sidelined one of my aspirations until 2009 (”start grad school or get promoted”). However late, I’ll be starting grad classes in January with a stupid private loan, and I still haven’t given up on getting promoted.

This morning, I read another take on the non-resolution New Year ideas from Chris, who says he charters an annual review. Basically, he takes goal-making to the next step. You start out by examining the things you’ve accomplished — or didn’t accomplish — in 2008. He suggests taking anywhere between a couple of hours up to a week to do this.

He categorizes his goals into a few classifications, like Writing, Travel, and three different financial groups (giving, saving, and earning). Then he sets up to 3 goals for each category. The review also asks you to provide a theme for the year (eg: The Year of Transition, The Year of Growth). He also keeps a metric sheet on a separate tab (yes, all of this is done on a big, nerdy, downloadable spreadsheet) to keep track of things like the number of countries visited, how much he’s saved, and other random stuff.

I also thought of coming up with a personal manifesto, outlining the mission that drives you forward. According to Webster, a manifesto is a “public declaration of intentions, motives, or views; a public statement of policy or opinion.” Perhaps your 2009 Manifest doesn’t have to be decried to the whole world, but they say if you share your goals with other people, you’ll be less likely to break them. I envision a manifest to be a declaration to yourself, at least, outlining who you are and what is driving you for a period of time, be it your family, money, fame, or personal satisfaction.

But the whole point of this seems to be to make goals that you will accomplish, and figure out how to get there.  If you don’t know how you’d logically surmount a goal, you’re already setting yourself up for failure. This is not to say, “don’t aim high,” but in the end, your goals shouldn’t be something that leaves you feeling hopelessly unaccomplished.