Monday 31 December 2012

Project 365 Redux: The list so far...

Do bear in mind that this is in no particular order - just how things are laid out so far...

Attend a burlesque show
Attend a drag show
Attend yoga or pilates
Back, sack and crack wax
Bake a vegan cake
Barber shave
Barter in a department store
Be blind for a day
Be in a parade.
Be left handed for a day
Be naked for a day
Be someone’s slave for a day.
Benchpress my own weight
Bet £20 on red at roulette
Bet on an obscure sport
Bid at an auction
Blow something up
Break a mirror
Break a window with a baseball bat.
Brush my teeth and drink a bottle of OJ.
Build a stool
Build a wall
Burn a book.
Buy 1000 penny chews
Buy a vibrator
Buy shares in something.
Chop down a tree
Climb a mountain
Collect someone at a bus stop.
Colonic irrigation
Count to 2,000
Crush a can with my head.
Cut someone else’s toenails
Cycle a tandem bike
Cycle through a drive thru
Deliver a pizza
DJ in a department store
Do a mensa test
Do that thing with the coke and the mentos.
Do the skateboard “olly”
Don’t speak for one day
Donate blood
Dress in drag
Drink a pint of Guinness
Drive or sail a boat
Eat fruit only for a day
Eat only red food all day
Eat sushi
Enter “rate my poo” website
Fight in a boxing match
Find another Mike Dean and go for a pint with them
Finish the "chef's challenge" at Akbar's
Flip a pancake
Get a cake/pie in the face
Get a manicure
Get a tattoo from someone I went to school with
Get an action bed-jumping photo.
Get colour matched for foundation at a makeup counter
Get my fortune told
Get my shoes shined
Get one of my own t-shirts made
Get onto a bus to an unknown destination
Go a day without electricity
Go Christmas carolling
Go grape-crushing
Go horse racing
Go to a sci-fi/comic book convention
Go to Ireland
Go to the Isle of Wight
Have a car boot sale.
Have a red mohawk for a day
Have a spin in a chopper
Have my fingerprints taken
Hire a bouncing castle
Hot Air Balloon
Invent my own cocktail
Invent my own country with a flag and anthem
Invite a stranger to dinner
Juggle
Jump from one tree to another
Jump out of a moving car
Kiss a monkey
Knit a scarf
Learn and identify 10 constellations
Learn another alphabet
Learn to moonwalk
Lie in a coffin
Limo ride with the sunroof open
Make a balloon animal
Make a bath of jelly.
Make a coconut bra
Make a human pyramid
Make a lemonade stand
Make a lemon-battery
Make a pact with the devil
Make a sauce from scratch
Make a three figure bet
Make an origami rose
Make and play my own boardgame
Make pottery
Make sock puppets
Make some jewellery
Meet a pornstar
Milk a cow
Paint a picture on canvas.
Paint my nails
Perform with an established band on stage
Picnic on a roundabout
Play a song on a guitar
Pretend to be a mannequin
Put something on YouTube
Queue overnight for something.
Read a book on my Kindle
Read the entire Bible
Rent a sports car…
Rollerblade down a hill
Run 10k
Say yes for a day
Scuba dive
Send a message in a bottle
Sew a hole in something
Sing a Nickleback song at a Karaoke night
Skateboard holding a moving car
Smash a computer monitor
Smash a guitar
Smash a walnut with a sledgehammer.
Speak when spoken to
Spend a day with an imaginary friend
Spend a night in a treehouse
Spend an entire car journey tied up in the boot
Start a fire from scratch
Stick a message on a banknote
Take a dance lesson
Take a pregnancy test
Take out a personal ad
Tee off into the ocean
Trace the family tree
Try to read a book backwards
Try to understand Hitler
Visit a sensory deprivation tank
Visit an old folks home
Wakeboard
Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes
Watch all Jurrasic Park films in one day
Watch all six Star Wars films in one day.
Watch all three Lord Of The Rings films in one day
Watch an entire box series of a dreadful TV show
Wax my legs
Wear a free hugs sign- give hugs
Wear a kilt
Wear all clothes inside out
Wear leather pants
Wear odd shoes for a day
Wear pyjamas going grocery shopping.
Wear women’s underwear for a day
Weld something
Wheelchair for a day.
Work with a homeless shelter
Write a fan mail
Write a letter to the Times.
Write a song
Write my name using my toes.
Write my own obituary
Write the opening sentence of my first novel/movie script
Drink beer from the tap
Drink a pint consisting of half lager, half bitter
Celebrate a national holiday from another country

2013: Project 365 Redux

I'm an idiot.

This will come as no great surprise to the vast majority of you but there are some of you who are perhaps new to the game that may not be aware of this fact.  Maybe I've just been exceptionally good at hiding my idiotic light under the common sense bushel. Maybe you just don't give a shit.  Either way, it's good for the truth to be out there.

Those of you who pay attention to my Facebook page (the hub of all things exciting and interesting in the world) will have seen me do a little thing called Project 366, with the idea being that I would post a different song, every day, for a year.  This went relatively well - some songs were well received, others not so. There were days where it was tricky to pick anything because I wasn't in the mood and other days where I was flooded with inspiration.  Some made me laugh, others made my cry.  In any case, it was fun.  A welcome distraction from the daily grind.

Of course, this has now ended and I feel a little bit of a void where it once was. So what to fill it with...?  Well, gentle reader, this is where you come in...

Never one to rest on my ample laurels (and for laurels, read buttocks), I have decided to have a stab at something new. In fact, many things new. 365 things as it happens.  Inspired by both a blog I came across when looking for songs on YouTube (http://www.theproject366things.blogspot.co.uk/) and the fact that when it comes to doing stupid things, I'm generally in favour of it, I am going to attempt to do 365 things that I have never done before in 2013.

At time of writing, I have compiled/stolen a list of 167 things that I can potentially do that I have never done before.  Some of which are fairly bog standard, some of which won't mean anything to you but will give me some satisfaction and some will no doubt cause you to wet your pants with laughter.  Let's face it, if you weren't going to gain some amusement at my expense, it wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun.  It'd just be some dude doing stuff.

The rules are:

* It needs to be legal
* It needs to be achievable
* It needs to be something I've never done before
* It needs to be done within 24 hours

So, let's see if we can't a) give you something to talk about/laugh at (or with) and b) get involved in.  All and any help/suggestions are welcome people!

The idiocy begins again tomorrow...

Sunday 11 November 2012

"I saw the sign..."

I've been thinking a lot about signs recently.

I don't mean in terms of traffic signs or anything (although in retrospect, had I been thinking more about that then I wouldn't still be digging out chunks of pony from the engine block of my car...).  More in terms of how we interpret occurences in our lives and whether or not we can derive any deeper meaning from them or whether or not these things are just random flashpoints that converge on our location at any given point and then pass us by without any more significance that the act itself.

A lot of this thinking has been down to reflecting on a few key decisions that I've made recently that have made a fairly big impact on my life and some of the weird things that have led me to making certain choices and instances that have occured after making said choices that have reinforced my belief that I have ultimately done what I think is best for me and my general state of well-being.

Funny that I should mention belief: I'm not overly religious, mainly on account of not seeing a whole lot of good come from it in terms of wars, etc. That being said, I can also see that for those people that do believe in "God" (whatever form he/she/it may come in), just having that belief can provide comfort and a feeling of belonging in what is increasingly becoming a more uncertain world, so who am I to take that away from anyone if it's not doing me any harm?

So then the question is what do I believe?  I believe that something is out there, something that may or may not have my best interests at heart, something that is prepared to let me know when I'm doing something wrong but also prepared to offer me a little hope that I'm getting something right. 

Whether it be some kind of bizzare flash-forward to a future that statistically could almost never happen and yet knowing that if that event ever took place then everything would come together, or whether it's reading what is ostensibly nothing more than a drunken Facebook post and instantly becoming clearer about the path you should take because regardless of where that came from, it makes perfect sense.  It could even just be how you interpret being stuck behind a horse box on a journey home.

Ultimately, there could be nothing in any of these things and I'm looking for meaning in places there aren't any - however, given the recent run of weirdness that I have been experiencing, it would be foolish to discount the possibility that maybe there is something in the ether that favours a positive outcome and is working hard to that effect.

If nothing else, the fact that I got to reference Ace Of Base in the title of this latest piece of nonsense has made it all worthwhile...

Monday 27 August 2012

Milestones and memories...

S'up people... greetings from the blogosphere.

Before anyone starts, I know I've not updated this in a while. I'm not a professional blogger so dry your eyes.  I doubt the two followers have missed my input that much.  They may have missed my sweet, sweet loving but to be honest, they aren't made of wood...

Anyway, enough of the homoeroticism (for at least 10 mins)... those of you who read my last post will know that I had good intentions of doing the Nottingham leg of the Men's Health 'Survival of the Fittest' this year in aid of the The Wayne Foundation.  This isn't happening folks... my life has been nothing short of chaotic the past few months and I've lacked motivation for pretty much everything.

However, I WILL be doing the Manchester leg of aforementioned race on Sat Nov 3rd, this time for a charity a little closer to home (if you read this Jamie, The Wayne Foundation will get the next sponsored gig I do, promise!).  The charity in question is the Willow Wood Hospice in Ashton.  The reasons why will be immediately obvious to some, not so to others, so I guess some kind of explanation is in order.

There are two main motivations here.  One is a burning desire to, with my 35th birthday looming, actually acheive something that is going to make a difference to someone's life.  Admittedly, this will be a drop in the ocean but screw it - it's a step in the right direction.  The other motivation is for a friend who benefitted greatly from the help and support that the Willow Wood Hospice gave them and while they sadly passed away last year, I've been planning for a while to put something into action and give a little something back and that opportunity has presented itself here.

Practically, this is a really dumb idea - I have essentially just under 10 weeks to get myself into some kind of shape to get this done and I'm already painfully aware that this is going to be damn hard work.  Then again, when was anything worth while doing not hard work?

Your part, gentle readers, is twofold.  I need your support and I need your money.  Make no mistake, the second one is by far and away the main reason for this so don't be tight - chuck a few quid their way and stuff gets changed. I will however probably be suffering a fair bit over the next few weeks as I embark on this venture, so any encouragement, however small, will be much appreciated.  I've set a target of £500 but I want more.  I want to smash that target to pieces.  Let's make it happen.

Sponsor me here:  http://www.justgiving.com/Mikeediablo

I'm doing the hard part.  Your part is easy.  Get on it people.

Take it easy.

Peace.