Oooh! Oooh!

Cheeky bird in Botanic Gardens

Don't you love it when you randomly stumble across cool stuff on the internet that makes you go, "Oooh! Oooh!"? I do. It's not only finding the cool stuff that is pleasing - it's discovering it completely by chance. Doubly gleeful.

You may recall that I am compiling a list of 101 Things to Do Before I'm 40. I poached the idea from a someone on listography.com, who had posted her list of 101 Things to Do in 1001 Days but I gave it a little twist of my own. (I get 1281 days and counting....). I didn't give much thought to where she got the idea or if it was her idea, but I liked it.

On Twitter this morning I got a new follower and when I looked at her updates, I saw she'd posted a link to her own list of 101 Things to Do in 1001 Days. I went, "Oooh! Oooh!" and clicked the link, where I found her list but also a link to the site Day Zero, which is where the idea originated. People can join up and post their own list.

Not only am I pleased to learn of the provenance of the 101 Things list, I'm going to ransack the hell out of those lists for inspiration! You see, I'm only up to about 70 things and I'm struggling a little. Compiling the list is a project in itself!

Day Zero also has links to some other interesting, fun and worthwhile projects, including:

* Learning to Love You More, which is the idea of artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher.

"Participants accept an assignment, complete it by following the simple but specific instructions, send in the required report (photograph, text, video, etc), and see their work posted on-line. Like a recipe, meditation practice, or familiar song, the prescriptive nature of these assignments is intended to guide people towards their own experience."

* Gimme your Stuff, a cultural exchange project blog "where you can swap items of significance to your area with items from others around the world. A conduit for many an international cuisine to change hands. A place where you can trade a newspaper from South Africa, or a CD from Finland. A place where we take no responsibility for anything anyone else does. A place where we are changing the world with other people’s stuff".

* 365 Day Flickr Group, which is a Flickr community of nearly 12,000 people who post a self-portrait every day for 365 days.

* Post Secret, which is a blog that publishes the secrets of anonymous people who send them in on the back of a postcard.

Anyone feeling inspired? Have you stumbled across any cool sites by chance recently?