30 November 2006

The Sesquicentennial Meme

Wonderfully dubbed by Lizza as the "(Haven't) Been There, (Haven't) Done That Meme", this compendium of 150 things brings some faux relief to the blogstipated Prometheus. Deviously simple, the items in bold are the feats Prometheus has accomplished.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain {Yeah, so what if it was tiny}
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive {NFS won't count, would it?}
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars {On an airstrip, no less}
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight {and also learn't the hard way that hailstone balls ain't snowballs}
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse of the moon.
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run {A sixer in cricket is the same, right?}
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking {Dancing Under Influence}
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer {Had three}
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk {Feathersh of a bird, hic.. flock together}
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them {Easy when you've lived in a superdense city}
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs {Shades of OCD}
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone {If a disaster zone crawling with defense personnel qualifies as a combat zone. No gunfire, but the body count was massive and the threat of a possible recurrence added the 'could be killed any minute' factor}
92. Buried one/both of your parents {Cremated, to be precise}
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane {Well, for about 5 minutes at least}
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol {Rifle, pistol AND shotgun}
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper {No, it wasn't the Crime section}
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Tag, you're it. Drop a comment to Prometheus when you're done.

27 November 2006

Just Checking

To see if you guys are still with Prometheus.

Nothing blogworthy these days. Blogstipated. Prometheus thought it'd be good to put in a random post, lest he forgets what Blogger is like.

07 November 2006

Digging Tunnels with Plastic Spoons

Humankind apparently forgot that the term 'sapiens' in Homo Sapiens means intelligent. Forgot the adage that 'with great power comes great responsibility'. Humans: A monument to Murphy's Law that says 'anything that can go wrong, will'. A testament to the fact that inherently inane beings, given choices, will make the wrong ones.

But not all make the wrong choices. These few remarkable individuals probably stay the Hand of The Maker from obliterating this species from the universe.

One such individual is Mimi. Mimi started this idea called the Peace Globe. Titled Dona Nobis Pacem, and signed by participating bloggers; the Peace Globe was nothing more than the desire for peace of each individual blogger. Undeniably feeble an idea. Surely, a chain of globes cannot achieve what numerous important-sounding treaties did not achieve. When the United Nations, in its third avatar, has failed; when NATO is nada; when NPT is history; when the Kyoto Protocol is worth less than a retarded rodent’s rear and Human Rights have been, er, left behind; the term ‘snowball’s chance in hell’ seems rather inadequate to describe this audacious Peace Globe idea. Prometheus himself has participated in some high-sounding global treaties and world forums. He has seen enough to believe his former superior officer who termed these events as ‘Meeting-Eating-Cheating’ charades. Prometheus did tell Mimi that this Peace Globe thing was ‘like digging a tunnel to China armed with a plastic spoon’.

But Prometheus did participate in the Peace Globe venture. Why? There is a proverb in Hindi that means ‘even a twig is assistance to a drowning man’. When the sun is blotted out, even a firefly seems dear. For Prometheus, the Peace Globe was not just a symbol of his derision for war of the military kind. It also symbolized his prayer for a world where we treat each other with respect, with equality, with justice. A world where we have rid ourselves of hidden agenda, of malice, of superiority over another race or religion, of our selfish traits and of our parasitic tendencies. His dream of a clean human race, one that achieves so much more by harnessing the time formerly spent watching our backs. Like the Elf kind of Tolkien. Wise and serene. Drowning in an endless ocean of stupidity, selfishness and hate; the Peace Globe was Prometheus’ proverbial twig.

November 7 is the day Mimi chose to be Peace Globe Day. Frank Sirianni did an album of all participating globes. There are but a few globes. Nowhere near even a fraction of the number of active bloggers. But these few globes represent the wisdom of mankind. They are a shout for peace. They are proof that you can’t fool all the people all the time. They deride the idiotic excuses for war. They chant that peace is the only option. They pinch to remind us of Mutually Assured Destruction and its futility. They preach that life becomes so much better with peace. They are proof that a renaissance can and needs to be wrought. And they are proof that this renaissance has been wrought within us. A movement has started.

Prometheus is proud of the Peace Globe, proud of Mimi and proud of all contributors.