The Challenge: Chat to a random stranger
Challenger: Lots of people

I was dreading this more than big mac-gate.

Chatting to strangers is reserved for:
a) people who have bits of food in their hair – and
b) hyper charity people who star jump at you in the street.

I wasn’t in a rush to stamp on their territory… it didn’t seem fair.

Unfortunately, I had to do it (fool that i am), but I wasn’t doing it without @soyabean1 – she had to be there to witness (from afar) my ruining – and, if need be, scrape me off of the pavement.

Target 1:

Man in g-star jeans. 30s. beard. (probably logs tapes in a dark room)*
Location: Bagel Mania

Me [browsing the bagels thoughtfully]… think I’m going for this one [thrusting a pre-prepped salmon and cream cheese in his face].

Man: [Blank stare]

I run.

Result: FAIL (embarrassingly, and miserably).

Target 2:

A smoker.
Ask them if they have a lighter.
I did.
It was a 10 syllable request.
That was it.
I had nothing more to say to a woman in pinstripe.
FAIL. I’m a loser.

Target 3 (and last chance):

Old man with dog, wearing Farah trousers**
Location: Mortimer Street

Distraught from Target 1’s blatant snub, and Target 2 being too lame to count, it was time to change tact…no more food in face or one line requests. I needed a purpose. And I had it… lost tourist. Perfect.

Me: Aw, what a beautiful dog [I stroke dog for that extra personal touch]
Man: [Smiles] -good sign!
It got better. I’m not going to recite our exchanges verbatim on here cos you might die of boredom and never visit my blog again. BUT he was super nice and told be lots about London, all of which I knew, but pretended to have absolutely no idea about. YAY. Stranger chatting can be un-mental if you choose cute old men with cute small dogs.

I’m giving myself a B+ – I would’ve got an A, had he not been old.
I felt kind of bad for lying, but he clearly enjoyed it, so it was a-ok.

* wanker
** the man, not the dog.

ps. is it only day 6? ow.

The Challenge: Make an Origami animal
Challenger: @georgiaarnold

I think i have found my calling in life.
Origami cat – FTW! FT-freaking-W!
OMG, I just want to make more and more…

Who wants to buy it for 50p?

The Challenge: Learn Street Speak, innit.
Challenger: Ali D (non twitterer)

I embraced this challenge, after all, I want to know what the Costcutter kids* are really saying about me when I go buy milk at 10pm.

Today was the day I would bust their code.

I headed over to Urban Dictionary and wasn’t gonna leave till I had at least three insults to chuck back…**

After searching through pages and pages and pages of dodgy acronyms, text speak and coined phrases such a la chop (I’m scared), I had three suitably offensive additions to my vocabulary…

Here’s what I got for ya…

Critical Ass
Someone whose ass has got so fat it’s literally busting out of their Miss Selfridge jeans.
I say and then run: “You might wanna lay off the Blue WKD and monster munch, Critical Ass!”

Overchicked
A gross boy who lands a hot girl
I say and then run: “No, I wont buy you 10 Mayfairs, you little overchicked runt!”

Tag Hag
Clothing tag lover. Too attached to remove.
I say and then run: “Taking that back to JD Sports? You skanky tag hag”

I also learned:

I like high 10s.

** Inside my head, obviously.
** teenagers that hang outside the mini mart by my flat

That’s all for today. I feel 15. Yay.

ps. Feel free to add your own insults below…

The Challenge: Learn the meaning of three new words.
Challenger: Me

I had to go easy on myself today… I was still tasting the big mac, and my self portrait was still staring back at me – I’m sure the mouth moved and asked me why I was doing this.

But it was ok, today I was going to learn something new. My idle-for-two-weeks brain let out an audible sigh of relief.

I opened the dictionary and found my three words – I went for one A, one B and one C – I figured I’d save the D, E, F et al for another of my 362 days…

Ready for my words?

Word 1
Adumbrate
Which means to give a faint or general idea of.

Spin this one in a meeting…
“Wow, Johnny, your description of revenue streams really was adumbrate adumbrative!”*

Word 2
Bilk
Which means to cheat and defraud.

Throw in down at your local social media club, natch – “I don’t like all this DM bilking going on in the Twittersphere”.

Word 3
Clabber
Which means milk that has clotted on souring
“Oh HAI. Let me fix you a coffee, do you want clabber in that? It’s the new soy alternative. GREAT!”

Wow, I think I’ve definitely increased by IQ by 2 points.
Anyway people, that’s all from me for today. Wasn’t that fun!

* Thanks, Will

The challenge: Paint a self portrait
Challenger: @riasharon

Two things you should know:
1. I painted a wicked bowl of fruit back in year 11.
2. In year 12 I owned an easel.

With this in mind, I was pretty confident. I was set to impress you all. Yay.

Sooo…

I sat in front of the mirror with my 150 gsm A3 sketch pad (natch), and then it occurred to me – portraits were never really my bag. Y’see if you’re painting fruit or rocks or grass you can afford to make mistakes… not so with a face – as I was about to discover.

I sketched a dodgy HB pencil outline and then reached for my paints. Oh no, apparently opened acrylic paint does have a best before date… crunch…

Not to worry…new strategy – old (pre) school – yeah, I whipped out the felt tips.
I sacked off the pencil too cos I didn’t have a rubber* in my house (does anyone?) Feeling brave, I went for a pen outline. Yikes, outline, not so hot… I was looking like an 80s boy that had been whacked in the jaw. The felt tips would save it though…

…or not, as I remembered – while colouring furiously and trying my best to stay within the lines – that felt tips have a habit of running out just when you’re on a roll…  oh well, at least I have beautiful ocean blue eyes (although, unfortunately, they do look like they might kill you).

Ok, I admit it, it’s shit – but wait till I get my paints back.

I enjoyed this one. I’d never try to draw myself on a regular Friday night.

One last thing, I don’t *think* I look like this in real life. Cos that would be bad. and unfortunate.

2 down.
363 to go…

See you all tomoz.

* eraser not condom.

The Challenge – eat a big mac in just four bites – yes, four-freaking-bites.
Challenger: @raxlakhani

Two things you should know:
1) I’ve never eaten a Big Mac.
2) It was New Year’s Day.

However, seeing as it was the only thing I’d been challenged to, I had to go with it.

The mc shack, as I like to call it, is a 1 mile trek down the road – and so I grabbed my flatmate to witness the momentous occasion (she reluctantly came along on the promise of a free fillet of fish meal) and set off.

As the golden arches drew nearer and shone bright into my hungover eyes, I’m not gonna lie to you, I felt nervous. There was some big beef and bun action about to come my way.

I ordered it (no chips thanks, mister) and I sat. I took my coat off – and cardigan (in preparation – like when a boxer takes off his dressing gown). This is how it went:

Bite 1: This was lame (think the kind of bite a cat might take). My first impression of the big mac? da da da da daaaa – Not Lovin It

Bite 2: Time to step up my game and employ a new technique – it went like this: bite and then shove more in. It worked, but caused slight asphyxiation. People were starting to stare.

Bite 3: As above but with more force. What was left after this bite was about a third – it was falling apart (literally) – but I held it together.

Bite 4: I was determined not to fail – and so like a proper champ – I went for it. Result? Major asphyxiation and special sauce on my t-shirt BUT also much happiness. I had just eaten a big mac in four f-ing bites. That’s got to be some kind of world record?! I bet even a seasoned fast food pro couldn’t top that.

Krystal Sqaure Off – I’m coming atcha.

1 down, 364 to go.
Until tomorrow….

Tweetyear. Yes, it’s another Twee… titled Twitter venture.

Sorry.

I thought about life hack, but then I didn’t want Gina Trapani chasing me with legal shiz.

What is it? At the start of 2008 I joined Twitter. Back then I was using it in a very different way to how I am now. I forced a few people at work to join up, and used it as a little group sms network. For anyone following me, none of it would have made any sense whatsoever (which probably explained my lack of followers).

When Twitter put a stop to the sms service in the UK we all made crying noises. People dropped off the radar – but a couple of us kept things going. More people joined the party and things got interesting. We actually started using Twitter the correct way.*

Then things got bad. An iPhone purchase took my little micro blogging hobby into a 140 character addiction.**

Apparently at the xmas work meal I was antisocial – preferring twitterberry (iPhone dead) to burritos and conversation with real life people.

It was time for action.

I used to do real life things, like snowboarding and kite surfing and talking to people face to face***, now I just sit with my laptop/iphone/blackberry, eating donuts and drinking diet coke.

So with this in mind, I’ve devised tweetyear.

Everyday throughout 2009, I’m going to (attempt!) to do a real life thing everyday. I am obviously not creative enough to think up 365 different things for myself to do – which is why I’m also asking for your help.

If you’re a Twitter user, to do the charitable thing all you have to do is @tweetyear with your suggestions… If you’re not – just leave suggestions as comments on this blog.

I can’t promise I’ll do them all, but it’s worth a try.

I’m going to blog each real life thing DAILY right here – with written or photo evidence.

It all starts on January 1st.

Yikes. 2009!

Some notes:
I only just thought of doing this 2 days ago, which explains a) my lack of planning b) my spur of the moment stupidity c) my rather lame uncustomizable wordpress blog.

* lying. still not sure what the correct way is.
** I also blame techcrunch for their daily twitter stories.
*** ok, two are lies.