Sunday, January 4, 2009

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?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is a really cool website! I cant wait to get started on this. Thanks for posting.

Anonymous said...

i've been post-secret-addicted for over a year now...

i'd love to do the 365 self-portrait one, but there are waaaay too many bad hair days hehehehe ;)

will have to check out the others.

thanks Ms Jayne, you are a mine of must-have info :)

Julian said...

101 things to do, hey? I think I might have a bit of trouble with that list, too, given that a number of the things I can think of aren't necessarily realistic! Looking at other people's suggestions sounds like a good idea, though. :) I've seen Post Secret, which is kind of neat, even if some of them are kind of disturbing!

Gimme your Stuff sounds like quite a cool idea. :) It indirectly reminds me of the idea of taking some sort of stuffed animal or similar item travelling with you and photographing it in places around the world.

Someone just sent me a link to a page which is headed "Ants on my Porcelain". Neat in its own right, but I don't think I'll be buying any any time soon! :)

Julian said...

Oh, oops... I was going to put the link as well, wasn't I?? ;|

http://www.holycool.net/2008/12/ants-on-my-porcelain.html

Anonymous said...

Hi Jayne, did you mean "provenance" ie. history or story of a thing ?

they use the term a lot on the antiques road show.

Jayne said...

Hi Carla. Glad you liked it. Feel free to come back and tell me about your list.

Hello Victoria. Pleased to be of service, ma'am. It's nice having a place to tell people about cool stuff you find on the net.

Yeah, I read about Post Secret last year or the year before, but never got around to looking at the actual site. Still haven't, actually.

The 365-day self-portrait thing would be far too time consuming, I think. I find I have to take about 20 photos before I get one I think I look good in. And I'm too vain to post photos in which I don't look decent!

Welcome back, Julian! Yes, one of the keys to the 101 things list is that the things on it have to be realistic - and it helps if they're measurable too, which makes compiling the list even more challenging.

I took Grover to Byron Bay and back in 2006 and have photos to prove it! Not quite the same as a round the world trip, however!

Hmmm, I think I can do without ants on my crockery also.

Hello Abbeysmum. Er...yes. Stoopid brain! Will fix.

Unknown said...

What fun ... I love these ideas. Are you going to publish your list once it's complete? :)

BTW ... Happy New Year! Hope 2009 is treating you well.

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