Thing #23: Learn to do a card trick

This was straight forward and worked first time, although I could have had a bit more practise to make it look more convincing. You may remember my previous awesome magic trick too. Check it out here.

Thing #91: Send a Valentine Card

This is a relatively easy Thing to complete provided you remember to do this! I forgot to do it last year, and I had to wait for a whole year for Valentine's day, before I could send out my card. So, without further delays, I can claim this Thing done!

PS: Happy Valentine's day if you are celebrating today (if you are a florist you are are most likely celebrating anyway!). If not, no worries, those in love have a day to celebrate their love. Those single ones, have 359 days to enjoy!

Thing #44: Teach your grand parents something new

Well, I did get to teach my grand mother something but video conferencing with her is probably as close as I will ever get to completing this Thing! Perhaps I should teach her how to blog and socially network too!

PS: This is the first time I manage to complete all Things in a row in my To Do table in the panel on the right!

Update: Another take on this Thing

Thing #66: Have a snowball fight... and have fun in the snow

I threw a few snowballs here and there, but I could not say I had a proper fight. At least, there was enough snow to have some fun and make a snow man! That was enough fun for a day!

Happy new year!

Well it's almost February, but better late than never so... Happy New Year! Oh, and happy birthday to this blog too which still goes on after two years! It's not just that holidays and work have taken priority the last few weeks and I did not get to post something. You may recall that I had put a few things on Ebay for sale so I had to wait for the listings to expire and see if there was any interest. And there was not.. so now I have to go with plan B or even try something else. I will literally keep you posted!

In anyway, I hope you all enjoyed your holidays and look forward to a great 2009!

Thing #78: Hold a jumble sale - Update

I have now posted a few items on eBay. Lets see how they go! In the mean time, I decided to sell a few of the books that I bought some time ago and never read. I filled a bag and headed to the second hand book store, only to find out that they have over-supply and would not be buying more until after the holidays. Desperate to avoid having to return with the heavy bag, I went to a second second-hand bookstore and things got more complicated. They offered credit for three brand new books, but that meant I would have had to return to check if the books had been sold. That's just too much hassle. In retrospect, I should have offered to give them away for half the credit value, but in cash. That would have closed the deal and I would have completed this Thing. Anyway, I came up with a better idea. I will give them to friends or release them in the wild using bookcrossing.com (remember Thing #34?). Hopefully, one of my eBay items will be sold and I will get to announce this Thing completed!

It's Christmas Every Day

From Wikipedia:

Andy Park, is an electrician from Melksham, Wiltshire, England, who styles himself "Mr. Christmas" after having celebrated Christmas day every day since 1994.

In 2001, Mr. Park estimated that since he started celebrating, he had got through 30 artificial Christmas trees, 10,000m of tinsel and 10,000 balloons, at a (then) estimated cost of £100,000.
Each day he eats breakfast (turkey sandwich and mince pies), then goes to work, until returning around at lunchtime to eat a full roast turkey dinner before watching a recording of the Queen's Christmas speech, sherry in hand. In 2006, it was reported that the Queen had politely declined an invitation to broadcast her speech from his house.

In an interview published in 2006, Mr. Park was quoted as saying that over the previous 13 years, he had consumed 4,380 turkeys (one a day), 87,600 mince pies (20 a day), 2,190 pints of gravy (half a pint a day), 26,280 roast potatoes (six a day), 30,660 stuffing balls, 219,000 mushy peas, 4,380 bottles of champagne, 4,380 bottles of sherry and 5,000 bottles of wine. However, in 2001, he was warned by his doctor that the diet was affecting his health after his weight increased to 19 stone (121 kg).

In 2005, he released a single entitled "It's Christmas Every Day", with a video featuring Mike Reid and produced by Andy Whitmore. There were suggestions in the media that much of the information was an attempt by Mr. Park to attract publicity for the single.

On 15 December 2007, in an interview on the BBC Radio 4 program Saturday Live, Mr. Park confirmed he was still celebrating every day. On 25 November 2008, the Daily Mail reported Mr. Parks had to change his celebrations somewhat due to the credit crunch.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa Claus brings everything you asked for and even more. And while waiting boring yourself, there are 101 things to do out there! It's almost 2 years since I've started working through my list and I have 'already' completed 2/3 of it. Only 39 things to go! By next Christmas I should have hopefully be almost there!

Thing #78: Hold a jumble sale

Jumble sales are so yesterday, so I will be trying to sell a few things I have not used for ages on eBay. Well, it's mostly computer components that came out from PCs that gave up on me (it's not my fault they can't work as much as I can). I don't expect to get much for them, but at least I will doing my bit for the environment. After all, I'd rather see them come back to life and serve a purpose to sitting in a box accumulating dust. Even better, this whole thing of looking for items to sell made me ask myself what I really need to keep and what I don't. Guess what? I started getting rid of things. After all, this is a good time to do so and start 2009 clean - literally and metaphorically. In fact, as I am in the process of clearing the corners this very moment. I will conclude this post right here and get back to it.

Thing #8: Learn how to play an instrument

A few months ago I bought an instrument hoping I was going to learn how to play it. How difficult can it really be to play a small drum? Well, I hit it a few times and it made this not-so-nice sound. After all the main criterion for buying it was: does it fit in my suitcase? Fast forward to yesterday, when I went out for some Christmas shopping and I came across the Guitar Hero kit. This truly gives a whole new meaning to air guitaring! So, turn on the volume and enjoy!

Thing #71: Do something nice without being ask

Some people need help, but they can't ask for it... because they are unconsious... in a telephone booth. I came across one such case tonight so I thought to do something more than nice and alert a near by policeman that there was someone in need of help.

Thing #40 and Thing #9: Completed for a second time!

What do you get if you combine Thing #40: Take care of an animal, Thing #45: Invent your own game (remember the Sparkling Cow Look game?) and Thing #9: Play a computer game to the end? Well, a game that takes care of virtual pets. I started playing on against my friends and although they had a head start I managed to get to #1. So I can claim both Thing #40 and #9 completed for a second time!

Thing #53: Succeed at something you are bad at

Many people can not sleep when they travel, for example on a train or a bus or an airplane. I am not one of them. In fact I can sleep even before the plane takes off. I find it helps kill time more effectively to starring at the clouds for hours and hours and hours (and hours). The only problem is that when you are on a plane everyone feels obliged to talk to you, it's good customer service after all. The cabin crew will offer a mint, before explaining the safety measures. Then they will bring some food (which you don't really want to eat), then they will bring the drinks, then the coffee/tea, then they will come back to pick things up and then... oh then they will try to sell you duty free. Surely, if I wanted to buy duty free I would have done all my shopping when I was at the airport. As if the above are not enough, the captain needs to inform us of the route we are going to follow and the flying level. Does it make any difference? I got on board at point A and I want toget out at point B. That's all it matters to me. Why am I saying all this? It's because it's impossible to sleep with all these disruptions.

Anyway, to complete this Thing I managed to stay awake for about 30-35 minutes in the taxi that brought me to the airport. This was a great achievement if one considers I failed the last three times and this is the exception and not the norm!

Thing #34: Hide treasure and leave a map

In June I was planning to go after a book in the wild, released as part of the bookcrossing.com initiative. It took me a few months but I finally managed to complete this Thing by hunting down a book released in my area. I did check a map to find the exact location (there are no X in Google maps), but that was not really need as I had a rough idea of where the place was. It was very exciting to see the book there on the shelf waiting for me!

For the record here is a photo!

To search for books or even release your own books in the wild visit http://www.bookcrossing.com/.