My Official Bucket List

It would be a misconception on your part if you assumed that all posts were created equal. There are certainly posts that I value over other posts. For some posts I spend hours researching and pre-planning so that my point comes across the way I want it to. For others, it's just more stream of consciousness, I sit down at the computer and pound out a post in half an hour. Some posts I am proud of and would love for all to hear my opinions, and other posts are just fodder so that I have exclusive content every week and people don't think I abandoned the blog. Certain posts I hope people will read to keep them coming back for more and others I hope are not the first ones that a person reads because then they will elicit a "meh?" from my reader. Well, this is a landmark post. This is the most important post in the history of this blog and the real reason that this blog was started. I like to thing that every blog has a purpose. There are probably people who mindlessly throw words out into the interwebs with no real end game, but that isn't me. The "theme" of this blog is The Lush Life...which is my formula for the American Dream. And while the first two years of this blog's life will be spent propagating the beliefs that the Lush Life espouses, I want you to know that I have a deeper, hidden purpose for blogging.

It won't be that well hidden anymore...because I'm going to tell you what it is. I would like it to be stated that while I want as many people as possible to follow and visit this blog and share it with friends and family...I have no desire to gain any sort of fame or notoriety from this blog. I have all of the Facebook friends that a guy could possibly need I don't even have a desire to be noted amongst other bloggers. Perez Hilton had better keep my name out of his god damn mouth. However, attaining a massive quantity of blog followers is exceptionally important to my end game. You see this blog, for me, is not so much a place to dump my opinions and feelings on the internet...it is my fountain of youth. I am 25 years old. Some might consider that to be a young and foolish age, but in today's American society, I am ancient. I am a relic. The rest of my life can be described as follows: works a crappy 40-60 hour-a-week job, tries to find a wife so he can produce offspring and save for them to go to college, and then dies. The odds of turning my life into a non-stop Nelly video became significantly smaller the day that I graduated college. In a world with responsibilities that increase with every passing day, I worry that I'll lose out on the luster that life has to offer...the stuff that most people see in the movies and think is fictional.

For those of us who sat through The Hours (a Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep film) we may very well know that the movie takes it's title from the Virginia Woolf novel Mrs. Dalloway. In this book she states that the way humans live our lives, we fail to appreciate the beauty in the small things and because of this life, on the whole, can be quite dreary and unexceptional, but that everybody has certain "hours" of extraordinary happiness that make life worth living. Well, it is my mission to see to it that I wring as many "hours" as possible out of the life that I have left. I want to live like I'm dying. The problem is that unless you are dying and are able to forsake ten years from for the present, you often need other people's consent to live like you're dying. I have a friend, he knows who he is, who whenever he sees a bad movie states that he wishes he had those two hours of his life back...but then he spends about five to six hours a day playing video games or on his iPhone. I don't want to waste my life in this manner. I want to strive for adventure and the extraordinary. And I'm not too proud to admit that I might need some help. So, I have chosen to publish my bucket list and ask that you my friends and readership push me to go after it and let me know if you'd be willing to help me with any of the items that are listed here.

Having lots of blog followers also helps facilitate certain things that may be on this list. If I were to have a run in with the police for swimming in a public fountain or taking part in some bizarre mildly illegal flash mob, I feel confident that it would make for a better excuse if I said that I was doing it for a post on a blog that had 500 followers...rather than a blog that has 25. I also aspire to be able to interview interesting people for this blog. I currently have a quarterly segment called "Better Know a Ray's Friend". The next edition will be later this month. I'm hoping that in a year and half this will be replaced by a segment where I interview people with a little more human interest. I don't want to interview Tom Cruise. I'd need about one million followers to get him to come on the blog and then his publicist would hand me a list of approved questions and insist that he gets final cut. But I wouldn't mind interviewing somebody further down the pyramid of celebrity...even on the other side of the threshold of celebrity. All I want is a "person of interest". I'd like to interview a member of Cincinnati's city council or somebody who owns a classy downtown restaurant. I wonder if I can amass enough street cred to interview former Fab 5 member Ray Jackson. I could do a segment called Ray on Ray. Dare I dream, if I get enough followers I might even step it up and interview Gary Cole. And I make you this promise...once I reach 500 followers I will go after the whale that is Gary Cole and will not stop until I land him or somebody of his level of celebrity's ilk.

So please help me get there. Follow my blog and tell your friends to follow too. Because I view this blog as an "excuse". It's an excuse to do what I want to do and be who I want to be. I'm posting this right now because I view New Year's as a great time to get a new lease on life. I don't intend to finish this list this year...otherwise it would be a year list and not a bucket list. But this is by no means an exhaustive list of what I want to accomplish. This list has a half life. Every time I cross two things off of this list, one more will go back on. And whenever I cross something off I will inform you of it at the bottom of future posts so that you can keep abreast of my progress. Here it is...my bucket list:

1. Ride a motorcycle.
2. See the Australian Outback.
3. Get paid to do stand-up comedy.
4. Play a full, real game of Strip Poker.
5. Serve on a jury.
6. Work on a Habitat for Humanity home.
7. Brew my own beer.
8. Attend a gay wedding.
9. See a movie at a Drive-In theater.
10. Witness a match on Center Court at the US Open.
11. Run a marathon.
12. Take a full-on body shot.
13. Move into an apartment complex with a pool.
14. Learn to play tennis passably.
15. Prepare and eat something that I have killed.
16. Be published as a reader's letter in a magazine.
17. Get in at least one more punches-landing fight.
18. Attend Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
19. Learn to drive stick shift.
20. Donate Sperm.
21. Have business cards.
22. Pay for a stranger's dinner.
23. Eat at a fondue restaurant.
24. Make my last will and testament.
25. Play a game of jet ski paintball.
26. Go on a Venetian gondola ride.
27. Get this blog up to 100 followers, including one I have never met.
28. Make my own candles.
29. Get married.
30. Purchase something at a live auction.
31. Make the perfect omelette.
32. Place flowers on a grave site.
33. Ride a mechanical bull (or an actual bull).
34. Swim in one of the five best pools in the world. I have a list.
35. Catch a home run or foul ball at a Major League baseball game with my bare hands.
36. Get some of that "Hair Action" that those Axe commercials are always talking about.
37. Take a family member that I have never met before out to dinner.
38. Adopt a Family for Christmas.
39. Take a couples cooking class...with a dude. And make people think that we are a gay couple.
40. Fast for Ramadan.
41. Play some slammin' beach volleyball.
42. Attend at least 10 sports at a Summer Olympics.
43. Give a kick-ass toast at a wedding or a kick-ass eulogy at a funeral.
44. Make love on a pool table.
45. Work a job that I actually enjoy going to everyday.
46. Leave a great waitress or waiter a 100% tip.
47. Bowl a game of 215 or higher.
48. Get a dream interview for this blog. I have a list.
49. Attend a book signing.
50. Go on a weekend golf scramble with several friends.
51. Master the Sporcle Countries of the World challenge.
52. Obtain the elusive OSSG.
53. Send out my own Christmas Cards.
54. Reach my "sex weight" (estimated to be 190).
55. Play Pebble Beach.
56. Skinny dip in a natural hot spring.
57. Coach a children's sports team.
58. Visit my Denver friends in Denver.
59. Get a tattoo.
60. Test out the Grim Fandango.
61. Learn how to podcast and videocast and put them on this blog.
62. Donate blood again.
63. Order a Vermonster.
64. Pull off another truly epic prank on somebody.
65. Go indoor rock climbing.
66. Swim in the Devil's Pool at Victoria Falls.
67. Build a bomb-ass snowman.
68. Personal Item. Let your imagination run wild.
69. Own and regularly use a hammock.
70. Get an international pen pal.
71. Host a micro-brew beer tasting.
72. Have a foam party.
73. Go to a firing range and pop off some shots.
74. Have the Las Vegas experience.
75. Ride in a stretch limousine.
76. Live in a house with at least five other unrelated people.
77. Reach the Internet Gold Mark.
78. Help somebody cross something off of their bucket list.
79. Attend one of those Murder Mystery Dinners.
80. Be in the right place at the right time.
81. Go to the airport, randomly select a flight, and spend the weekend in that city.
82. Score above 50 on a purity test.
83. Successfully keep a personal planner for a whole year.
84. Have my own patented signature dish and cocktail.
85. Go geocaching. And find a 5/5 cache.
86. Make out with somebody on a cruise ship.
87. Fake a proposal at a restaurant with the intention of getting dessert or champagne on the house.
88. Donate an organ.
89. Play a drunken game of Truth or Dare.
90. Visit all 50 States.
91. Get a garish bathrobe and embroider a swank nickname onto it.
92. Get belligerently, ballistically drunk and have somebody take care of me. Then do the same for them.
93. Be a nude model for an art class.
94. Visit the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.
95. Work my way completely through a cookbook.
96. Achieve the Middle Spoon.
97. Drive around a Free Drunk Mobile for a night.
98. Go on a Great American Road Trip with friends or family.
99. Be elected to a city council.
100. Hire a hooker for the sole purpose of her making me pancakes.
101. Go kabrewing...or whatever the whiskey equivalent may be.
102. Run with the Bulls in Pamplona, Chase the Cheese in Glouchester, OR Participate in the Bubble Baba Challenge in Losevo.
103. Get to $50,000 in savings.
104. Have a child.
105. Take part in some community theater production or student film.
106. Have a drink at an ice bar.
107. Take photos of me completing this bucket list and use them for a Bucket List Calendar.
108. Be so ridiculously romantic/thoughtful/generous that I actually elicit tears from somebody.

You can also feel free to check on this list and see my updated progress at: http://bucketlist.org/list/PrimeToasta/. It's time for me to get busy living or get busy dying. Let me know if you want to help me live the dream, and as always, please follow my blog.