Book-ish

I finished A Clockwork Orange a few days ago, and have now moved on to reading American Psycho. I saw the film several years ago and really liked it, primarily because of Christian Bale's performance. The book is much more intense than the film; I'm about a third of the way through it, and there have been some absolutely horrific things described. I'm enjoying the book, but it's tough going in places.

Patrick Bateman is a psychopath, and it's debatable (given the film's ending and my not knowing the ending of the book) how much of what he describes is actually taking place. The thing that I find really fascinating is this obsession with status that he and the people around him have regarding everything, and at the same time most of these people don't even know each other's names! He is constantly mistaken for other people, just as he and his group of "friends" mistake people they see across a room for other people; in some ways that in and of itself is quite disturbing, that people can do this and be fine with doing it, both in how they talk to people and how people talk to them...

I've done a little research today for the SFX Pulp Idol story; bizarrely for a science fiction short story I was consulting the Wikipedia entry on Jane Austen... Closing date for Pulp Idol is June 3rd, so I'd best get a move on!

More on books soon, have to make a move for home now. Thanks again to people who have commented; I'm going to check out your blogs and reciprocate soon. Hope you're all well.

Buses and Bingos

You wait for ages and then two or three come along at once...And this one scores higher than the one from last week too, so that suits me fine...

I'll have to write more in a few days on books and things. At the end of last week and over the weekend I re-read Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? and on Saturday I started reading A Clockwork Orange, both good starts to challenges 69 and 68 respectively.

I also want to find time to respond to my friend Matt, who commented and asked me about challenges 58 and 59, related to finding plait presentations for 11-crossing knots. I imagine that the around 99% of people who read this will say, "What's a plait presentation?" Don't worry, it is nothing magical or incredibly difficult to get your head around, and I will say something about that soon I hope.

Less than a week in and I'm already making excuses as to why I'm not writing! It's a busy time, with family stuff, job applications I'm filling in and so on. I am still committed to seeing this through though; thanks to all who have commented so far, I hope I make it an interesting read as I get on with these things. By the end of the week I will have tweaked the template a little further, and will add a link at the side to the entry with the list in, and will edit that as and when I complete things, OK?

One change to the list though: I decided that 1001 haiku really was far too many, and so have scaled that back to 101.

Take care, more soon.

Day Two: One Down...

Totally out of the blue I've achieved one of my 101 things! Not bad for my second day...

In one of my games of Scrabble that I am playing over Facebook I was able to use all seven tiles on my rack in a turn, which is a first for me, something that I've been aiming for ever since I first played Scrabble. More recently, as I've taken a great liking to the game I've been trying harder to improve my game, but still the "bingo" has eluded me.

Until this morning...75 points (for those who don't know, you get a fifty point bonus for using all of your tiles in a turn) is nothing to be sniffed at, but I can do better. I may have satisfied that goal, but that's no reason not to aim higher!

If you've been reading the blog from the start, you'll notice that I've changed the template as well, switched to something similar with different colours and tweaked the margins to give a larger reading space. I want to tweak the posting so that there is kind of a bar or linebreak between each post, but haven't quite figured out how to do that in the template code (if that is indeed where one is supposed to do it). If any more experienced blogger has any ideas or knows how to do this (or even knows how to open up the space between posts) then please let me know, it would be much appreciated.

I hope to have the list (or some shorthand version) up in the sidebar soon, so that I can have links to the things as I complete or work on them (which is why this post has a tag of "57", the number of the thing that I have done).

Onwards and upwards: 57. Use up seven tiles in a turn at Scrabble - done!

Day One

Going to start off nice and easy today, will write a few haiku tonight and get some ideas for flash fiction down - maybe have a think about the SFX Pulp Idol...

In time I want to get some kind of organisation together in the side column to help with navigation concerning the different challenges and projects; I might take a stab at it tomorrow, along with working on the look of the blog. I quite like the colour scheme, but want the margins wider and I want to remove my picture too. A few tweaks here and there will keep me happy for now, and then I can start working on the layout issues that I want to correct.

By the way, if anyone reading this has any questions as to why I've chosen some of the challenges that I have, please feel free to ask; I hope to write something about them over the next few days (especially giving some idea as to what some of the maths things actually mean!) but if there are any in particular that you want me to talk about then please let me know.

Day One - sunny outside, happy inside, more or less.

Introduction

Well, I've just posted my ordered list of 101 things that I am going to do in 1001 days, starting from tomorrow, Tuesday the 22nd of April 2008. The 1001 days will take me through to the 17th of January 2011, the day before my 30th birthday.

I'll write more in the coming days as to how I have arrived at some of these things and why I have put them on my list, and then of course will get down to the business of actually doing things from the list.

I'll also be working on the template and style for the blog over the next few days, not quite happy with how it looks at the moment...

Adventure and excitement awaits!

The List

(last edited: 14/2/2010) - 26 out of 101 things done!

LIFE
1. Read entire Bible.
2. Keep a diary regularly for at least six months. (0/6)
3. Find a church to go to.
4. Get weight down to 15 stone.
5. Be a vegetarian for three months. (1/3)
6. Stick to 5-a-day for a month. (0/30)
7. Move out of home.
8. Make a will.
9. Buy and keep an up to date address book.
10. Handwrite a letter to a friend at least once a month. (4/32)
11. Send 101 postcards. (60/101)
12. Fill Terramundi. - done! 10/10/2009
13. Have a birthday party.

WRITING
14. Take part in three NaNoWriMos. (1/3)
15. Write 101 haiku. (50/101)
16. Write 101 pieces of flash fiction. (10/101)
17. Write three pieces of fan fiction. (0/3)
18. Edit and redraft my NaNoWriMo novel from 2006.
19. Complete a Script Frenzy. - done! 19/4/2009
20. Enter the SFX Pulp Idol competition.
21. Write/blog about books and films that I read and see.
22. Blog every day for a month on Cognitive Blindspot. (30/30) - done! 30/9/2008
23. Keep a regular blog about my 101 Things in 1001 Days progress.

CREATIVE
24. Make a 24 Hour Comic.
25. Paint my large canvas.
26. Make my Christmas cards one year.
27. Make a film of over an hour in length.
28. Make a short animated film.
29. Learn 5 card tricks. (0/5)
30. Learn 5 coin tricks. (0/5)
31. Learn to juggle three balls.
32. Take up a musical instrument.
33. Complete my NaNoWriMo novel from 2005.
34. Bake a cake for a present.
35. Create an interactive novel.
36. Create a webcomic (and regularly update for at least six months).

TRAVEL
37. Renew my passport. - done! 25/7/2008
38. Revisit Edinburgh.
39. Revisit Japan. - done! 6/10/2009
40. Visit Ireland.
41. Visit five US states. (11/5) - done! 10/8/2009
42. Spend a long weekend in London (including a West End show).
43. Spend a weekend in Cardiff.
44. Attend a sci-fi/comic convention. - done! 5/2/2010

GAMES
45. Replay and complete Ico.
46. Replay and complete Shadow Of The Colossus. - done! 3/1/2009
47. Replay and complete Metal Gear Solid 2. - done! 19/7/2008
48. Replay and complete Metal Gear Solid 3.
49. Replay and complete Resident Evil 4. - done! 25/5/2008
50. Replay and complete Lego Star Wars.
51. Replay and complete Lego Star Wars II.
52. Replay and complete Killer7.
53. Complete Gregory Horror Show.
54. Complete Kingdom Hearts.
55. Buy my own Scrabble set and Scrabble dictionary. - done! 10/5/2008
56. Score more than 350 points in a game of Scrabble. - done! 9/5/2008
57. Use up seven tiles in a turn at Scrabble. - done! 23/4/2008

MATHS
58. Get plait presentations for all alternating 11-crossing knots.
59. Get plait presentations for all non-alternating 11-crossing knots.
60. Learn enough C++ to implement k_plait.
61. Get three papers/preprints from my thesis. (2/3)
62. Confirm the number of stacked 4-tangles.
63. Learn about and understand the fundamentals of special relativity.

INTERNET
64. Buy a domain name. - done! 29/1/2010
65. Get a Flickr account and upload 101 pictures to Flickr. (101+/101) - done! 9/9/2009
66. Use an RSS reader.
67. Sell five things on eBay. (0/5)

BOOKS AND FILMS
68. Read 101 books I've never read before. - done! 30/12/2009
69. Re-read 50 books. (30/50)
70. See 30 films at the cinema. - done! 16/10/2009
71. Make a list and watch twenty-five classic films that I really should have seen but haven't got around to yet. (11/25)
72. Attend a film premiere.
73. Re-read "The Sandman".
74. Re-read "Y: The Last Man".
75. Re-read "Calvin & Hobbes".
76. Read "Bone". - done! 2/7/2009
77. Read "Cerberus".
78. Re-read Scott McCloud's books on comics. - done! 29/3/2009
79. Sort out my comic collection by the end of September 2008. - done! 18/9/2008
80. Catalogue comics every six months after September 2008. (0/4)

STUFF
81. Grow a beard, in the style of Dr Gregory House.
82. Solve twenty-five of the problems on Project Euler. (25/25) - done! 4/3/2009
83. Shine my shoes once a fortnight for six months. (0/12)
84. Get my back waxed.
85. Learn to do ten meals well. (0/10)
86. Attend a first aid course.
87. Buy a Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360.
88. Buy a laptop. - done! 9/5/2008
89. See a Shakespeare play.
90. Attend a concert at a stadium-sized venue.
91. Attend a live opera.
92. Buy a wind-up torch or lantern. - done! 20/6/2009
93. Complete a crossword. - done! 14/3/3009
94. Sort out clothes and books once a year, giving the unwanted items to charity shops. (1/3)
95. Release five books into the wild with BookCrossing. (0/5)
96. Read "Massage For Dummies".
97. Host a dinner party.
98. Cook Christmas dinner.
99. Go on a picnic. - done! 29/8/2009
100. Send a Valentine. - done! 14/2/2010
101. Spend a lazy afternoon in a bookshop/café, drinking tea, reading books and hanging out with friends.

Draft Beginning

If you're reading this then it's either that you've stumbled across this page by accident, or more probably you're a reader of Cognitive Blindspot, another blog that I write for, and you've come across from there. This entry won't exist for very long, it's only a placeholder until I get my first proper entry in.

This is my blog for my "101 Things in 1001 Days" project; I loved the idea of 101/1001 as soon as I first saw it, and knew that I had to take part. A little thought made me realise that I could time this just so that I was to complete it before I turn 30, and hence 1001 days after the start of this (on Tuesday 22nd April 2008) will be the day before my 30th birthday.

One definition of entropy, according to Wikipedia is "a measure of disorder in the universe." Who knows where life will take me by the time I'm 30, how much disorder will there be in my life? I don't know, but what I do know is I am going to do my best to be the best person I can be, and part of that is to undertake the following list of things. All require some measure of effort and commitment, and all, I hope, will bring some benefit to my life and those around me, even if only in the superficial sense that they make me happy.

Maybe you've never seen this page, I intend to remove it once I launch properly on the 22nd/when I format my list and blog template better. This just gives me a starting point of sorts, like 101/1001 itself.

The List (unordered and uncategorised, a taster for anyone who might be reading at this point)
1. Get weight to 15 stone.
2. Keep a diary regularly for at least six months. (0/6)
3. Be a vegetarian for three months. (0/3)
4. Stick to 5-a-day for a month. (0/30)
5. Move out of home.
6. Use face mask once a month. (0/33)
7. Get my back waxed.
8. Make a 24 Hour Comic.
9. Take part in three NaNoWriMos. (0/3)
10. Write 1001 haiku (not one per day). (0/1001)
11. Paint my large canvas.
12. Complete a ScriptFrenzy.
13. Make my Christmas cards one year.
14. Make a film of over an hour in length.
15. Renew my passport.
16. Revisit Edinburgh.
17. Revisit Japan.
18. Visit Ireland.
19. Visit five US states. (0/5)
20. Spend a long weekend in London.
21. Attend a sci-fi/comic convention.
22. Learn 5 card tricks. (0/5)
23. Learn 5 coin tricks. (0/5)
24. Learn to do ten meals well. (0/10)
25. Learn to juggle three balls.
26. Attend a first aid course.
27. Take up a musical instrument.
28. Use an RSS reader.
29. Read "Massage For Dummies".
30. Sell five things on eBay. (0/5)
31. Grow a beard.
32. Sort out my comic collection by the end of September 2008.
33. Catalogue comics every six months after September 2008. (0/4)
34. Fill Terramundi.
35. Read entire Bible.
36. Attend a film premiere.
37. See a Shakespeare play.
38. Create an interactive novel.
39. Create a webcomic (and regularly update for at least six months).
40. Enter the SFX Pulp Idol competition.
41. Write/blog about books and films that I read and see.
42. Watch the Red Vs Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles series.
43. Blog every day for a month on Cognitive Blindspot. (0/30)
44. Make an animated short.
45. Get plait presentations for all alternating 11-crossing knots.
46. Get plait presentations for all non-alternating 11-crossing knots.
47. Learn enough C++ to implement k_plait.
48. Write three more papers/preprints from my thesis. (0/3)
49. Confirm the number of stacked 4-tangles.
50. Read 101 books I've never read before. (0/101)
51. Re-read 50 books. (0/50)
52. See 30 films at the cinema. (0/30)
53. Re-read "The Sandman".
54. Re-read "Y: The Last Man".
55. Re-read "Calvin & Hobbes".
56. Read "Bone".
57. Read "Cerberus".
58. Replay and complete Ico.
59. Replay and complete Shadow Of The Coloussus.
60. Replay and complete Metal Gear Solid 2.
61. Replay and complete Metal Gear Solid 3.
62. Replay and complete Resident Evil 4.
63. Replay and complete Lego Star Wars.
64. Replay and complete Lego Star Wars II.
65. Replay and complete Killer7.
66. Complete Gregory Horror Show.
67. Complete Kingdom Hearts.
68. Bake a cake for a present.
69. Host a dinner party.
70. Cook Christmas dinner.
71. Spend a weekend in Cardiff.
72. Go on a picnic.
73. Send a Valentine.
74. Spend a lazy afternoon in a bookshop/café, drinking tea, reading books and hanging out with friends.
75. Handwrite a letter to a friend at least once a month. (0/33)
76. Have a birthday party.
77. Shine my shoes once a fortnight for six months. (0/12)
78. Learn about and understand the fundamentals of special relativity.
79. Buy my own Scrabble set and Scrabble dictionary.
80. Score more than 350 points in a game of Scrabble.
81. Use up seven tiles in a turn at Scrabble.
82. Make a will.
83. Attend a live opera.
84. Re-read Scott McCloud's books on comics.
85. Write 101 pieces of flash fiction. (0/101)
86. Write three pieces of fan fiction. (0/3)
87. Buy a domain name, and host a website.
88. Get a Flickr account and upload 101 pictures to Flickr. (0/101)
89. Find a church to go to.
90. Buy a wind-up torch or lantern.
91. Keep a regular blog about my 101 Things in 1001 Days progress.
92. Complete a crossword.
93. Make a short animated film.
94. Sort out clothes and books once a year, giving the unwanted items to charity shops. (0/3)
95. Make a list and watch twenty-five classic films that I really should have seen but haven't got around to yet. (0/25)
96. Buy a Nintendo Wii.
97. Buy a laptop.
98. Send 101 postcards. (0/101)
99. Release five books into the wild with BookCrossing. (0/5)
100. Attend a concert at a stadium-sized venue.
101. Edit and redraft my NaNoWriMo novel from 2006.