In which Hank decides on punishments and picture books....and rides some bulldogs.

John has a choice, which punishment should he choose?

Also, if you're wondering about the infraction, it was an email concerning our friend Ransom's participation in this contest.

In which John plays with his new Wii, makes yet another in your pants joke, proposes a project, and prepares for his first punishment.

A late arrival to Brotherhood 2.0? Catch up with highlights from the second week, now available on Youtube. (Thanks to Dad for putting this together!) First week highlights can be found here.

In other news: You should go here and vote for my friend Ransom Riggs' movie. (I am confident you'll agree with me that it is the best of the four.)

Furthermore: if you digg Brotherhood 2.0, let people know.

In which John finishes the survey, discusses babies, makes a gratuitous "In Your Pants" joke, and puts on his invisibility cloak.

n.b.: Commenter Little Willow said the puppet should have eyes. Ask, and ye shall receive.

In which John affixes the Printz Honor onto Markus Zusak's "The Book Thief," starts to answer the survey questions, and discusses the "In Your Pants" phenomenon.

(Sorry it's late; I wanted to leave Hank's brilliant Jan. 23rd post up as long as possible.)

For those of you who are new to our video project, you can start by watching highlights from the first week. Second week highlights are coming soon. And keep commenting! Your comments make us very happy.

Also, those of you who for whatever reason don't have video capability on your computers: An Abundance of Katherines was just awarded a Printz Honor. This means it gets a silver medal on it. Hooray.

For more information about Hank and John's yearlong video project, visit the brotherhood 2.0 web site.

For more information about Hank and John's year-long video project, visit the Brotherood 2.0 web site.

When he was still a state senator, I happened to be in the Chicago Public Radio studios at the same time as Barack Obama. My producer and I stopped recording to listen to him. After about five minutes, Justin said to me, "That guy is a state senator?! A state senator? He should be President!"

He should.

Hank, you should feel free to edit this post. Also people who are not Hank should feel free to leave comments in this post, suggesting revisions and additions to the rules of Brotherhood 2.0.

A lot of people have had questions about the rules, and some people were disappointed when I didn't sing The Proclaimers' "500 Miles" on Monday because they thought I had broken the rules. But A. I hadn't broken the rules, although B. you would have no way of knowing this, because the rules existed only inside of my head and Hank's head, plus C. even we were not entirely sure of them. You have to understand that we didn't decide to do this until like December 20th. There was not a lot of thought given over to planning.

THE RULES

1. Every weekday (that isn't a major holiday) either Hank or John will post a video addressed to each other but available to the public. (Sometimes, Hank and John will use private videos to communicate private and/or boring things, such as how to compress videos using imovie in a way that won't piss off youtube.)

2. Hank and John will not communicate, under any circumstances, via any private textual means. No email and no IMs and no text messages. (We're doing B2.0 partly because over the last several years, living on opposite sides of the country and all, our relationship became almost exclusively textual.) Some phone calls are allowed.

3. If one of us should fail to update by 11:59 PM on the appointed date, a punishment will be meted out. We already seem to have agreed that the first such punishment would be having to sing The Proclaimers' "500 Miles" on video.

4. I think as a practical matter we have agreed that videos should never be over four minutes in length.

5. This blog will continue to feature text, and that will not be a violation of the rules. The main reason it hasn't featured text lately is that I am trying to finish my new book.

OK, it's only the second week and I'm already very nearly not making it through posts. This one almost didn't get out because I came to detroit with a laptop, but without a charger.

My Brotherhood 2.0 video blog will be late today on account of how I am filming and editing it on our 7-hour car trip from Fairview, North Carolina to Birmingham, Alabama. (Hank and I are both on the road; he's in Detroit at an auto show.)

But it will be up by late this afternoon, I assure you, primarily because I really really really really don't ever want to sing The Proclaimers' 500 Miles for public consumption.

Wherein John discusses the differences between brothers, reveals his darkest secret, and attempts the Nepal Challenge.

By the way, we need someone to tell us why the audio in our imovies suddenly starts synching wrong when we upload to youtube. Are you that person? If so, you win a prize. Please help us in the comments.

Brotherhood 2.0: January 1st