Thing #17: Act in a play

I actually completed this Thing back in October, but just did not get myself together to post it. Better late than never.

I was attending a class when we were asked to prepare a short play and then act to illustrate the theories discussed. I was in a team of 4-5 people which meant not everyone was going to play. Needless to say I jumped to the opportunity. It's not always been easy to volunteer and we all have our reservations. At the end of the day though we need to make our choices. Stay at the side or lead the play?

I may not be at the Academy Awards this year.. but at least Thing #17 is now completed!

2009 + ...

...I wish I will manage to post more than 10 entries = 2010!

In case you were wondering (I can not be hold accountable for you losing your sleep) I have not forgotten about my 2007 new year's resolution. It was just put on hold.. for 6 months, as I did not find the time to post. Is there really a better time to resume or a better way to resuming, but making a new new year's resolution? After all people do that all the time.

Anyway.. enough with the introductions, just let me say: that I hope you all enjoyed the first week of 2010 and that the rest of it is 2010 better!

Bookcrossing

I registered a few books with book crossing and let them loose. If you find any of them please do leave a message!

Details of the three books can be found here:

http://www.bookcrossing.com/222-7362132
http://www.bookcrossing.com/001-7362146
http://www.bookcrossing.com/327-7362142


Update: The books were caught and a reply to my message left at bookcrossing.com. Check it here.

Update: Just released on more book: http://www.bookcrossing.com/155-7729828

Thing #26: Recycled

In the past it was a bit of pain (well more than a bit) to recycle as there was not an easy way of disposing the recycle materials. This has finally been resolved as our City Council brought to each household in our neighbourhood a proper full size recycle bin. Since then, I have recycled about 50% of all my waste (at least as far as the volume is concerned). Even better, it took some time to actually fill both bins, which a) is good news for the environment as I do not consume much, hence I waste less b) I do not need to take the bins every week to the designed area for emptying them. Saving the environment saves me time, so it's a pretty good deal if you ask me. Now that this blog is even more environment-friendly I can claim Thing #26: Help save the environment competed for the second time!

Statistics

In the last two years this blog had about 3700 visits which is not bad considering I have not told many people. Before anyone claims that he or she has visited the site 3700 times they should pay attention to the fact that these visits correspond to 2940 different visitors. In anyway... many thanks for spending 1 minute and 14 seconds of your life reading my posts every time you visit this blog.

• 3,697 Visits
• 2,940 Absolute Unique Visitors
• 7,081 Page Views
• 1.92 Average Page Views
• 00:01:14 Time on Site

Thing #56: Know who your friends are

I was checking the evaluation form that is suggested by the book in order to figure out who my friends are. This included items such as:

1. Lied to you: how would I know?
2. Humiliated you in front of others: I can do that by myself, but any help is always welcome
3. Told other people your secrets: perhaps I am telling them 'my secrets' so that they can actually tell other people
4. Refused to apologise for something they did or said to you that was wrong: not really, after all they don't want me moaning to them for the rest of their lives... oh and I will most certainly do so
5. Borrowed money from you and not paid it back: nah, good bills make good friends
6. Blamed you for something they did: that would not work, as I am beyond any suspicion
7. etc etc

Well, I could not fault anyone I know which either means I have many good friends or that the evaluation list requires a reevaluation. Either way Thing #56 is a thing of the past.

Thing #18: Win Something & Thing #68: Take Part in a Tv show & Thing #100: Meet someone famous

I was thinking of what to post for Thing #18: Win something and two stories came to mind, one which involved winning prizes in radio shows. That reminded me of Thing #68: Take part in a TV show. Interestingly, television is the only media I have not featured actively in one form or another. Well I have been mentioned I suppose and even appeared randomly! So, as I always had a passion for radio, I thought to put forward those prizes I won back in... 1994 (yes that's correct, 15 years ago) in a local radio show. I even remember, a couple of the questions, .e.g. one asked where is the Atomium. Piece of cake!

To win my other prizes though I had to put far more effort than just use my trivia knowledge. So I prepared my submission for this competition and went to the night of the awards full of confidence. I even prepared a speech.. just in case! Anyway, I arrived at the gala, sat down and had a look at the programme which listed all the competition entries... only to find that I was not listed! I was disappointed to say the least trying to come up with why that would be the case. Anything from my submission did not reach them to I was THAT bad! After a minute I thought I should at least enjoy myself. So, to cut the story short, I enjoyed my dinner, while they started announcing the prizes one by one (similarly to the Oscars). I was very surprised to listen to the presenter announcing that I was nominated for one of the categories. I thought to myself that's better than nothing. Even better than that, was that I won the second prize in that category! By that stage I was thinking this is not as bad after all and how can it be when your hopes are crashed as mine were originally. Anyway, they continued with the prizes and got to the last one, which was the overall award. I was surprised (but not as surprised as the first time) to find out that I was nominated again. Second time lucky and I got to win tho overall prize! Not bad considering I was not even mentioned in the programme.

Replaying the evening in my head while writing these few words also reminded me that the overall prize was presented by Diego Luna, an actor who had recently played in the 'Terminal' with Tom Hanks. So, I suppose I can even put that forward for Thing #100: Meet someone famous (an update on this can be found here)

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.