Day Zero

Every once in awhile somebody introduces me to something fascinating that exists in the world that I did not know about.

Sara did this with PostSecret.
Shannon did this with Six-Word Memoirs.

Last week, Dawn introduced me to Day Zero. For lack of a better term, it is a Motivational Website. It urges people to create a list of 101 things that they want to do in 1001 days. You make your list on the website and it immediately starts a countdown to your deadline. You are also able to track the goals on your list that you have accomplished.

I don’t know that I will make a list. I still haven’t sent anything in to PostSecret. I still haven’t written a Six-Word Memoir. But I am fascinated by the concept.

The Day Zero website lists the Top 101 things that people have set as goals. As of today, this is the current list:

1. Donate blood
2. Write a letter to myself to open in 10 years
3. Sleep under the stars
4. Get a job
5. Get a tattoo
6. Kiss in the rain
7. Go camping
8. Leave an inspirational note inside a book for someone to find
9. Watch 26 movies I’ve never seen starting with each letter of the Alphabet
10. Watch the sunrise and sunset in the same day
11. Find out my blood type
12. Fall in love
13. Send a secret to PostSecret
14. Build a snowman
15. Go horseback riding
16. Dance in the rain
17. Don’t complain about anything for a week
18. Go to a concert
19. Get a massage
20. Ride in a hot air balloon
21. Tie a note to a balloon and let it go
22. See the Northern Lights
23. Make a new friend
24. Get married
25. See 10 classic movies I’ve never seen
26. Go on a road trip
27. Take a photography class
28. Go ice skating
29. Complete a coloring book
30. Go on a cruise
31. Fly a kite
32. Identify 100 things that makes me happy
33. Read 100 books
34. Go skydiving
35. Go on a picnic
36. Attend the midnight premiere of a movie
37. Influence a person to make a day zero list
38. Buy a lottery ticket
39. Find a personally inspirational quote and work it into a piece of art or home decor
40. Answer the “50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind”
41. Complete a 365 day photo challenge
42. See a drive-in movie
43. Learn to knit
44. Go vegetarian for a month
45. See a movie in 3D
46. Go to 5 different museums
47. Write a short story
48. Get a passport
49. No fast food for a month
50. Write a song
51. Go barefoot for a day
52. Graduate
53. Send a message in a bottle
54. Host a dinner party
55. Improve my posture
56. Run a half marathon
57. Buy a car
58. Go skinny dipping
59. Make ice cream from scratch
60. Spend a rainy day watching films in my PJ’s
61. Write a book
62. Put change in someone’s expired parking meter
63. Dye my hair
64. Run a marathon
65. Write all my bad memories on paper, burn this paper afterwards
66. Sing karaoke at a bar
67. Learn a poem by heart
68. Have a baby
69. Clean out my closet
70. Carve my name on a tree
71. Go to the zoo
72. Go rockclimbing
73. Spend a day at the beach
74. plant a tree
75. Not log into facebook for a whole week!
76. Bake cupcakes
77. Take a Yoga class
78. Read all the books currently on my shelf
79. Expand my vocabulary by 100 words
80. Make a birthday cake for someone
81. Attend a film festival
82. Make a custom recipe book
83. Learn Spanish
84. Have dinner by candlelight
85. Go fishing
86. Stop biting my nails
87. Identify 100 things that make me happy
88. Get a facial
89. Visit the Grand Canyon
90. Buy something from Etsy
91. Join a book club
92. Develop a better skin care routine.
93. Run a 5K
94. Graduate College
95. Go to Las Vegas
96. Take a dance class
97. Do some volunteer work
98. Ride a horse
99. Knit a scarf
100. Go skiing
101. Buy a house

The URL for Day Zero is:


http://dayzeroproject.com

If this inspires any of you to make a list, let Dawn know. Inspiring somebody else to make a Day Zero list is on her list and then she will have 1 less thing on it!

11 thoughts on “Day Zero”

  1. You know, you could start a list with a postsecret (which is on mine as well) and a six word memoir and add in the remaining weeks of the photo project… just sayin’ 😉

  2. Dawn,

    Sending something to PostSecret is on my list of Personal Photo Projects, but I know I won’t post that when it gets to that week on the Personal Photo Project posting.

    That posting will go something like this:

    “I sent something to PostSecret.”

    As far as 6 Word Memoir goes, I don’t like it anywhere near as much as I like PostSecret. Although when I tell people my joking 6 Word Memoir (A series of meaningless social engagements.) people don’t find it amusing.

    But if I had 99 other ideas already in my head for Personal Photo Projects, it wouldn’t be a terrible idea.

    However, I should write all of my ideas down at some point before more of them get lost to the ravages of old age.

    While I’m thinking about it, I might be able to help you with #57 on your list. You could help with a Personal Photo Project of mine that was spurred on by a text conversation I had with Willy.

    You have long arms, don’t you?

    Angie,

    Perhaps, but if I had a movie goal, it would be either watch all of the Academy Award winners for Best Picture that I haven’t seen or watch the movies on AFI’s list of 100 Best Movies of All-Time that I haven’t seen.

    If I was making a list…

  3. I’m betting that if you were to sit down and start composing a list you would have more projects than you realize. I’m rather surprised that I am up to 71 tasks already (although one we know is flarf).

    Long arms, long torso, long legs, but yet too short to reach the tops of the cupboards. That sounds like it would possibly be a safe enough subject not to make me too self-conscience.

    Related to movies goals, I saw an interesting task today to watch a movie from every year since movie making began.

  4. That is an interesting goal, but it is hard to find movies from before the 1920s. It would definitely be a hard goal to pursue because you would have to watch over 100 movies to complete that goal.

    It is even debatable what year would be considered the beginning of moviemaking.

    Do you start in 1867 with the invention of the zoopraxiscope?

    Do you start in 1878 with The Horse in Motion?

    Do you start in 1888 with Roundhay Garden Scene?

    Do you start in 1890 with Monkeyshines No. 1?

    Do you start in 1891 with the invention of the kinetiscope?

    Do you start in 1895 with the invention of the cinematographe?

    Do you start in 1903 with The Great Train Robbery?

    We’ll talk about this picture soon.

  5. The beauty of it is that the rules of the list are your own. It could be any starting point that you want it to be. I am working on the alphabet movie list. I checked one movie off my list over the weekend with Avatar, but did not check a movie off for last night’s feature with Debra. She choose a Lifetime movie to watch, which I do not feel is applicable towards the list for several reasons (besides being docu-drama fluff it had commercials). As list maker you get to choose what applies and what doesn’t. You could just as easily change the wording to 5 movies from each decade since the 1920’s, thus cutting your viewing in half and making it a little easier to fulfill the older generation film quota.

    I have been commissioned to make beans for FNSC so be prepared to present your picture proposal and I’ll be prepared to listen.

  6. I understand that you could make it anywhere you want it to be. If I am anything it is quite adept at making my own rules. However, it would be difficult for me to make such a determination. I don’t have OCD (and it kind of annoys me when people self-diagnose), but I can be really anal about superfluous stuff like these arbitrary distinctions.

    Although I have seen Roundhay Garden Scene. I found it aimless and lacking inspiration. The characters are somewhat contrived. 2 seconds of my life that I won’t get back.

    I can’t give you the proposal at FNSC because Willy will be there. Although it really isn’t much of a proposal and it is a very simple picture to pose for, but long arms are a benefit.

    I do look forward to you getting down to Z so we can watch Zardoz. It will be a life altering experience.

    I also recommend Return to the Valley of the Dolls when you get to “R”. Plan 9 from Outer Space when you get to “P”. A subdependent unfinished horror classic called Quietus when you get to “Q”.

  7. Hmmm… speaking of anal, maybe I should make a task about walking past an open cupboard door. Maybe. But probably not.

    My arms are at your disposal then. Keep me posted.

    I haven’t decided yet if I am going to stay in alphabetical order or just watch one for every letter. It seems like you have a lot of the more difficult letters covered though! I think no matter what I should save Z for last. That way I can say I at least started and ended correctly. And if it alters my life too much I won’t be under any pressure to finish out the quest.

    I will more than likely need to re-watch Valley of the Dolls then, it has been far too many years since my last viewing. In fact, I think I may have been young enough that I didn’t watch it all the way through. I can’t quite remember, although that seems unlikely.

  8. My brain completely stopped working as is a sign of my advanced age.

    I meant “B” for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

    It actually isn’t a sequel to Valley of the Dolls. It is quite something else entirely. It is the only movie ever produced that was written by Roger Ebert. It is completely beyond comprehension.

    If you thought Spartacus: Blood and Sand was terrible. This movie is off the charts.

    It has absolutely everything you could ever want in a movie:

    Sex
    Drugs
    Rock’n’Roll
    Transvestites
    Escaped Nazis
    Lesbians
    Porn Stars
    The Heavyweight Champion of the World
    Suicide Attempt
    Miracles
    A moral at the end of the movie!
    Much, much, more…

    I would suggest that we watch it at the conclusion of FNSC this week, but their is a Playoff game begging to be watched, plus I need to go out into the middle of the country to work on a Personal Photo Project. But of course, it could feasibly work out.

    But that opens up the letter “R”. That clearly stands for “Robot Monster” a movie that went a long ways in shaping the person that I have become today.

    I don’t really have a good suggestion for the letter “Q”. Quietus doesn’t really exist and it was a bad joke for Angie and something that happened about 4 lifetimes ago.

    But I wonder how your rules reflect the word “The”. Does “The Quiet Man” count as a “Q”.

  9. Twice the fun of Valley of the Dolls, eh? If I remember correctly the original had at least 4 or 5 of those subjects. I don’t think I realized that Roger Ebert had written anything other than reviews. I find it rather comical that with all hes “expertise” it would turn out terrible. That right there may have peeked my curiosity enough to suffer through the viewing.

    I would think it would be the same as my filing system at work with “the” being ignored. Same as the shelves at the video store as well. So I would say The Quiet Man would qualify.

    You are going to the country in the middle of the night for a photo shoot? Interesting. I usually only go to gaze at stars or play hide & seek in the corn. While I don’t have to work Saturday for a change, I am still older than you and tire easily. Doubtful that I could make it that long to watch a movie but I may stick around awhile to watch some of the game if you guys have it on.

    Robot Monster sounds like a name for a movie that would have been featured on USA’s Up All Night or Mystery Science Theater. Can I make running commentaries through out?

  10. You are not allowed to speak during Robot Monster. You are only allowed to sit in reverent silence and soak in the greatness that is a movie about a robot monster, played by a man in a gorilla suit wearing a diving helmet with tv antennas glued to the top.

    Robot Monster asks deep philosophical questions like:

    “I cannot – yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do “must” and “cannot” meet? Yet I must – but I cannot! ”

    There are reasons that people become critics rather than artists, musicians or chefs. Some people have the passion, but no talent. Roger Ebert lacks talent. He lacks it in spades.

    Remember Jean Sibelius:

    “Pay no attention to what critics say. No statue has ever been put up to a critic.”

    Of course Roger Ebert could say the same thing about me making fun of his terrible movie.

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