Remembering the Piercing Starvation...

Challenge Numero Uno: To fast for 5 days with only water, tea and coffee.

Challenge Numero Dos: To try memorize 100 peoples birthdays.

Challenge Numero... uh... three: Get my nipple pierced and keep it for a week

Difficulty: Medium rare followed by... can't remember.... then ouch time...

Overview / Rant: I've read some awful books in my life... but probably ranked there at the top of that list is none other than the Way of the Peaceful Warrior... it's diabolical... it's a first person story about a young man who mets a 'life-sensei' at a petrol station and this sensei teaches him the way of the Peaceful Warrior. There's also a love interest but *SPOILER ALERT* halfway through the novel his memory is wiped and he forgets he ever met her... in a story told from the first person... in the past tense... how could the author/character tell us about this lady if his memory was wiped of ever meeting her? Also- his life ends up being shit with failed marriages and whatnot... so yeah... stupid stupid book...

One good thing came from that book- apart from being good to keep a fire going, was the notion of fasting for 5 days... so I decided to try that s**t out...

Day 1 - Went to bed at 3am after a night of heavy drinking and Warcraft III with my bro and cousin. Yes ladies- I am single. So anyway... woke up at 11am and felt the urge for breakfast. Managed to ignore that urge by gulping down a pint of water. Next temptation came at lunch time when we went out to Stoop Your Head in Skerries. They do the most delicious plate of prawns in garlic butter... I salivate just thinking about it.... so I resisted temptation by taking a brisk walk around the harbour while everyone finished their meal. I drank water... with a piece of cut lemon... since I didn't eat the lemon I don't see it as cheating... By 9pm that night I had no more cravings for food... although I may or may not have played more Warcraft III... seriously ladies- form an orderly queue...

Day 2 - Feel great! Had a slump around 5pm but watched a movie and drank water. Had to sit through dinner because I had a friend over... when I saw the food (fish, chips and beans.... drool) I was so tempted to break the fast... but as the food was eaten I realised that I actually wasn't hungry! Leading me to believe that I will eat food if you put it in front of me. Which holds true as I always feel compelled to clear my plate even if I'm full- seriously- it takes a lot of self control for me NOT to eat what's left on a plate... Also today I realised that when I want to 'think' I have food... like: "What'll I do now?" will also be thought over a piece of toast or a poached egg...

Day 3 - Grand.... zero hunger problems.

Day 4 - Woke up today wishing it was Friday. I was in a foul mood all day. I tried to keep myself occupied with activities but I just kept getting annoyed really easily. I ended up having a hot chocolate (made with water) to try cheer me up... dunno if that was cheating but I honestly couldn't have cared at that point...

Day 5 - Feel really good! I had no hungry all day but I decided to reintroduce myself to food around 4pm as I was heading to a gig later and needed to drive. I had toast... mmmmmm.... butter.... toast.... yum....

Conclusion/Recommendation: Surprisingly easy to do... granted there were tons of times where I wanted to break it but once I removed myself from the food I felt much better. For really serious hunger I just drank a pint of water which really took the edge off. I drove most days without any hassle but I felt a little weak on the Friday (hence the toast)... I lost half a stone over the week but I would definitely NOT recommend this as a weight loss solution- I'm fairly confident that my metabolism has slowed so much that the next food I eat over the coming week will go straight to FAT reserves... 

What I would consider is fasting for 48 hours once a month. It would definetly remind you that a.) you will not die if you go without food for a day or two and b.) it's a good way to 'reset' your system and reintroduce healthy foods etc... but that's just my opinion... I'm not a doctor... 

Challenge Numero Dos: To memorize 100 friends birthdays.

Rant/Overview: Since my birthday was fast approaching I felt the urge to learn my friends birthdays and not be solely relying on social mediums such as facebook. I used a combination of memory techniques, in particular the Peg System and Memory Palaces. A Memory Palace is a specific place you imagine in your mind, it can be anywhere you must be able to imagine it vividly; e.g. your house, your school, the beach. I designed twelve memory places for each month of the year...

January - a cinema (new beginnings/beginning of a film)

February - a valentines house designed in red and gold (valentine's Day)

March - an army barracks (army people march)

April - a kitchen (April and apron share the same first three letters)

May - a barn (May rhymes with hay which is in a barn)

June - the moon (June rhymes with lune. Lunacy is associated with the moon)

July - my house  (my birthday is in July)

August  - the beach (summer holidays)

September - entrance of my school (school starts back up in September)

October - graveyard (Halloween in October)

November - bank (banks have members and member rhymes with November)

December - winter wonderland

So then I had to associate numbers with words... I used the following from Derren Browns Book Tricks of the Mind. I seriously recommend this book to everyone. It's an amazing read- I've read it myself about 6 times and I still find new and interesting things every time. Anyway...

 1 - bun           6 - sticks

    2 - shoe           7 - heaven

3 - tree            8 - gate 

4 - door          9 - line

5 - hive           10 - hen

The next step was to walk through the Memory Palace for January and insert people and their birthdays. I would picture the person in my mind and look at their birthday. So if someones birthday was the 13th of January then I'd imagine them sitting in the cinema eating a bun, but the bun has a small tree growing out of it. The image should be entertaining or strange but it needs to be weird enough that you'll remember it. If someone's birthday was the 24th of April I would imagine them in a kitchen cooking- they get annoyed and stamp their massive clown shoe on the floor- but it's not a floor it's a trap door.... kitchen represents April... the massive clown shoe represents 2 and the trap door represents 4... and so on...

Difficulty: It's really hard to remember the people you don't associate with as much. The hardest birthdays to remember were of the people I rarely see or can't picture in my head. I found the best way to remember someone was to get them to interact with me as I walked through the Memory Palace- that way it'd be more vivid and real. 

Conclusion/Recommendation: Well I managed to learn 100 birthdays and (2 weeks later- yes I am useless at posting on time) I still know about 60 of them. The ones I don't know are where I designed a poor Memory Palace (November and August) and are the people I see less of. 

I totally recommend Derren Brown's book- it's a really good read. I also recommend you try this to help remember your nearest and dearest birthdays. I've an awful memory but it's nice to know that techniques like this can be used to improve it.

Also- people on facebook have no fear of identity theft... 

Challenge Numero THREE: Nipple piercing...

Overview/Rant/Conclusion/Recommendation: Em... I'm still undecided... it's sore if people hit it... it's kinda annoying cus I keep hitting it be accident... I don't know if I like it... I don't know if I dislike it... there's a piece of metal going through my nipple... how is one supposed to feel about that?

Anyway... here it is... 

I'll keep it. At least until I head to Kuwait... 

Final thoughts: Late with posting (as usual) but I was away last week hiking from Dublin to Galway! I'll but that one up later. Cheers for reading. 

Culture Vulture

Challenge: To cook 5 different continents meals over the 5 working days off the week. Continents are Australia, Africa, America, Europe and Asia... I'm not separating North America and South America because well- North American cuisine is... McDonalds... and I'm not counting Antarctica because I'd basically be eating ice for the day....

Things Learned / Skills Developed: Learned how to make pizza from scratch. Learned how to make two delicious chinese sauces from scratch. Generally culinary awesome-ness...

Overview / Rant: I'm not a bad cook by any means. I enjoy cooking- I enjoy the feeling of having prepared a meal for some time and then serving it up to others to be enjoyed. All things considered I am a good cook.

Day 1 - Australian Cuisine - My initial google searches wielded results that initally had me intriged... "Chook cuisine"... what was this cuisine- I'd never heard of 'chook' before... after some further reading I established the following helpful equation for solving what 'chook' is...

With this complex equation I ignored the menu I was used to and looked for something a bit more interesting. Eventually I found out that Vegemite on Toast is an iconic food to Australia... Another Australian icon is Skippy... and I thought he'd be fun to eat... so I found the only butcher in Ireland who sells Kangaroo (lovely lovely people- find it here)... and my dream to eat Skippy was finally looking like a reality...

The Woolshed Bar & Grill was the only place that offered Vegemite on Toast... so myself and my trusted assistant went to see what all the fuss was about. I also ordered a Fosters as it seemed fitting for the day.

Both were awful... so far Australia had a lot to answer for...

It was decided that the Kangaroo and Antelope meat (why not?) should be BBQ'd... of course it started to rain... everything seemed to be going wrong...

But wait...

Skippy is f***ing delish! I don't know why someone didn't eat him sooner... antelope was also lovely- but Kangaroo won out as the tastiest. Happy that I'd tried Australian Cuisine for the day, I decided that Day 2 I should move in a clockwise fashion around the globe.

Day 2 - African Cuisine - cooked a delicious chicken and lime sauce meal with cous cous. Surprisingly tasty. Not much more to report here...

Day 3 - American Cuisine - South American to be specific as I feel I have intimate knowledge of North American style foods. Also feeling a little bit tired of cooking- I prepared a simple, yet delicious, meal of fahijtas. The secret is to dice some jalepenos into the chicken while cooking it to give it that extra kick... mmmm... spicy goodness...

Day 4 - Europe Cuisine - Specifically Italian Cuisine... I set myself the task of learning how to create my own pizza from scratch... i.e. making a base, making a sauce- adding topping etc etc. EVERYTHING was going epically... I'd laid the base onto a plate- added the sauce- added the topping... then tried to remove the base from the plate... now- I don't know if you know this about dough... but it sticks... to anything... apparently you should add flour to the underneath to stop it sticking... HINDSIGHT is a beautiful thing (other beautiful things exist here... I wonder how exclusive a site it is?) but FORESIGHT would have been better. Eventually the pizza's were tossed into the oven, in bits, and just left to cook. They were awesome- tasted amazing- looked like shit.

Day 5 - Asian Cuisine - cooked two delicious Chinese meals, creating the sauces from scratch- which is surprisingly easy. A pork and pineapple dish and a chicken soy and ginger dish. Served to family and extended family- positive responses all round...

Conclusion / Recommendation: Really enjoyed learning how to cook different meals. The whole experience taught me that I need to be more adventurous with my cooking! No longer shall I fear the cookbook and it's mysteries...

Next Challenge: Next week is probably going to be the toughest challenge to date. I will fast for five days. I will only drink water, tea and coffee (no milk). It's going to be tough- possibly pointless- but I've always been curious to know what it would be like to fast for that long. I've been fasting now since 3am (was drinking heavily until then) and I'm f**king starving!

Also I'm not allowed drink alcohol for the week (wanted to fit that one in somewhere!) and I figure now would be a good time... mainly because alcohol would probably kill me at this point.

Finally I'm going to attempt to learn 100 of my facebook friends date's of birth. I've been reading Darren Brown's book where he discussed memory techniques and I'd like to try a few out- I figure this would be a good time to try it.

Random Stuff: This guy is a hero in the cooking world...