Inspired by the original, much more pessimistic Deathclock.com, in the second Epoch (during the period after the first time my hard drive got deleted) I composed a lengthy "list of things to do before I die", before all of those new charlatans came on the scene after "The Bucket List" was written. I've reconstructed maybe a fifth of it:
1. Shoot an independent film that gets entered into an official film festival
2. X Create and Detonate Molotov Cocktails, Plural [My 21st birthday was perhaps more interesting than yours]
3. Slap or punch a pregnant woman [No, not in the stomach]
4. X Help a baby- [I was walking behind some Japanese tourists one time at an amusement park and a little girl around the age of one and a half, slung over her father's shoulder, dropped the hat she was gripping in her hand, so I picked up off the ground and handed it back to her, and she smiled at me as though I had just saved the universe. It was cute.]
5. Play a sitar concert in the crater of a dormant volcano, or on the moon
6. Aerial Shenanigans:
X Parasail
Also Pictured: JH
X Skydive
Hmmmm... Do I really want to do this?
Flügtag [That's in nearby Chicago, which I have never visited]
Bungee Jump
7. Read poetry in the Rubiiyat of Omar Kyam style [complicated, complicated]
8. Get a personal portrait done by David Hellman [he's another of my favorite artists, he did ALILBTDII and graphics for the game "Braid"]
9. X Found a ridiculous charity [To raise money for Doctors without Borders my friend Ivan and I began an epic charity video game event as part of a giant extra-credit International Relations project, that would be know forever within the halls of the University of Iowa as THE VIDEOGAME OLYMPICS! That is until after attempted national registration when we found out that the name was already trademarked.]
9a. Carry out a Guerilla Art Project [I've already done some Reverse Graffiti, but I have something larger in mind]
10. XX Learn How to Surf in Brazil [Double check]
11. Genetically Engineer a new plant species [I already sort of did this in science camp while taking an advanced genetics course in high school but that was too fill-in-the-blank, I feel like taking on something more complex]
12. Visit or create a Micronation
13. Take a full MIT OpenCourseWare Course [I skim purchases from the reading lists occasionally but I've never tried a full curriculum, though I have improved my calculus and post-calculus significantly with The Great Courses from The Teaching Company, which is similar]
14. X Beat someone at MarioKart 64 using only my feet
15. Cook a seven course meal from scratch
16. Beat a cheetah at tick tac toe [I won against a chicken after being defeated once at the Reptile Gardens in Rapid City, South Dakota. It felt like a hollow victory.]
17. Corner one branch of the stock market
18. Inject yourself with nanites
19. Publish a novel [I've already written and destroyed a couple books and several short stories, now to write something that doesn't suck]
20. X Convince a non-English speaker through conversation, that you are from their country- in person without translators [did it, did not do it in Iceland]
21. X Build go-karts from household objects and race them against friends [ this wasn't originally on the list but when it happened it was so fun that I had to add it]
22. Visit King's Dominion in Virginia, known by many roller coaster aficionados as the greatest roller coaster park in the world [OR SO I'VE BEEN LED TO BELIEVE]
23. Build a functional robot (army) [fifteen more years I think]
24. Paint two paintings of sufficient quality to be displayed before one's coffin during a funeral
25. Fake your own death
26. Ride a Zeppelin [This was long before XKCD, Munroe just made it mainstream]
27. X Read a big book [Yes, that's been accomplished I think]
28. Melt something with a microwave gun [Newscientist, in their infinite wisdom, posted a patent to a microwave gun with detailed blueprints]
29. Long bet someone on longbets.com
30. Take a down-and-out person and fully rehabilitate them into society
30a. Invent something of actual use to someone somewhere
31. X Architecturally design a building
32. X Direct a play [I stopped at three]
33. X Join MENSA
34. X Run a marathon
35. X Compose the Perfect Halloween costume [I won an award and free food! ...though not the year that I wrapped myself in tinfoil as a robot and left little balls of it the stuff all over my friends SK and SK's house]
36. Own the Endgadget [despite my best efforts pestering people at Google, Android, and the MIT Ideas campaign, phones still cannot do half of the things that they could be doing]
37. test drive an electric sports car
38. X climb trees a lot [to the tune of "Into the Trees" by Zoë Keating]
39. X stargaze and see a shooting star
40. Perform a monkey chow diaries-like experiment
41. learn to drive stick-shift
42. Host a massive treasure hunt
<> try to take pictures while doing these things...
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Now that I have ran a marathon and joined Mensa, I plan on running the Ironman next year on Sept. 13th (if I can find someone willing to sell their ticket) and if I have free time joining The Megas to become the world's first MEGA IRONMAN.
Also in April 2012 (taking advantage of Britain's planned carbon-offset flight arrangements for the Olympics) I am going to head over to Norway to do this:
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