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...

Eggcellent

Firstly... yes... I went there... and I'll be staying there for quite some time...

Challenge: To keep an egg alive for a week while keeping it on my person at all times.

Difficulty: 4/5

Skills developed: Responsibility of something extremely delicate.

Overview/Rant: So, was it all it was cracked up to be? You wanna hear about my eggcellent adventure with the egg? Tuesday last I was set the task of babysitting an egg for a week by a gentleman named Charles Beastley- I thought to myself: "What's this yoke on about?!" So without further eggistation I began the challenge of protecting the egg from the outside world.

In keeping with the Spanish concept- I decided to name my egg Senor Juevo (Mr. Egg). Senor Juevo was sophisticated, beautiful and delicate. He poached himself quite a few ladies in the past, but all ended up running in the end. He seemed hard on the outside, but underneath his shell was a gooey centre... as I discovered on day two...

Senor Juevo had an adventure in my coat pocket... I can't be sure of the details- all I know is he eggploded with joy... we did our best to save him but even my dear friend Benedict couldn't unscramble this mess...

A ceremony was held for Senor Juevo one hour later. There were candles, a prayer and a fry up...I resigned myself to failure... I was to be alone... but everything wasn't as it seemed...

Senor Juevo was back... how could this be?

Senor Juevo... was... a... Cylon*... there were many copies... each containing the memories and eggperiences of the previous models...

Unprepared for this, I inadvertently killed the second Senor Juevo only hours after his first death. Appalled at what I had done, I begged the gods to entrust me another Senor Juevo to protect... and the gods were obviously low on applicants that day because sure enough another Senor Juevo arrived on my doorstep.

Having moved on from my shell shock of seeing (and killing) two Juevos in two days, I promised to treat this Senor better than all the rest; I took him sightseeing in the city, shopping in St. Stephens Green and I cooked him a beautiful slap-up meal. TONIGHT I'm taking him to see the eggcellent production "HAIR" starring some of my amigos (Good Luck!). Senor Juevo recommended it after reading about it here.

Recommendation: Certainly a challenge. I'd give it a goo! Oh- an actual recommendation would be to wrap the egg in a plastic sealable bag- that way it won't destroy your clothes when it cracks.

Conclusion: So- this challenge would seem an EPIC fail... BUT- I've succeeded in keeping this egg alive for 5 days now and I'm going to CONTINUE to keep this Senor Juevo (numero 3) alive for as long as possible. Although, he may be so eggcited about the show tonight that he'll... f*&k it, I can't keeping using puns... you get the idea....

Next/Current Challenge: So- I still haven't written about the 'Spanish' challenge! Well the reason for that is I'm speaking with my Spanish speaking friend tomorrow/Thursday over the interweb. So I'll update when I get some external feedback. Also- my challenge this week is to write and record a song in a week. It can be whatever I want it to be, but it must be of some reasonable sound quality. So far I'm stumped for what to sing about so suggestions are always welcome!

* This is referring to Battlestar Galactica... if you haven't watched it then now would be a good time to punch yourself if the face as you've missed out on potentially the most amazing show ever... EVER! Actually on that note...

Got milk?

Challenge: To be a vegan for a week. This meant no meat, eggs, honey, dairy or anything else that would upset the animal kingdom. It also meant not wearing leather or anything made from animals, although ties bearing pictures of animals were acceptable (although frowned upon). I was also required to cook a vegan meal for a friend.

Difficulty: 3/5

Skills developed: Learned how to make my own vegan bread, cookies and chick pea snacks...

Overview/Rant: For those who don't know, the philosophy behind veganism is that you live a lifestyle which does not cause harm to any animal, not just the cute ones. Veganism is, fundamentally, about being a hard-core vegetarian. Where vegetarians can get off saying "Ugh, do you know what they did to the animal you're eating?!" Vegans can say "You drank some cows milk? DIE DIE DIE!!!" Between vegan and vegetarian, when it comes to who's got the biggest cucumber - vegans win out... although argument could/should be made for the fact that not eating meat is, kind of, a lose-lose situation anyway... 

Okay- you've probably noticed by now that I am not a poster boy for veganism. Maybe it's my taste for blood and flesh that my parents instilled into me from an early age (how dare they) or maybe it's our natural instinct to eat other animals. Now- I haven't read Richard Dawkins "The Evidence of Evolution" for the sole reason that I don't need to be convinced of the blatantly obvious, but, I'm fairly sure, at some point, the argument was made that humans are designed to eat other animals. We’re part of a food chain. If a bunny had razor sharp teeth I’m sure he’d rip our f*$king throat out... or has Monty Python taught us nothing? Basically, if you’re trying to sell me onto the idea of vegetarianism/veganism solely on it’s immoral, then I’m not sold. Animals are supposed to eat other animals. Does the cheetah eating the antelope think of stopping once in a while to eat the grass and dig into some tofu? No, they know what they were designed to do. We’ve been designed to do the same. Or can someone explain to me what I’m doing with these canine teeth in my mouth?

On the positive side of veganism, and moving away from my ranting digression, there is a serious upside to becoming a vegan. In studies comparing vegans and meat eaters they found that the vegans have a lower body mass index, lower levels of cholesterol, lower levels of saturated fat and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, prostate and colon cancer. So, while we meat eaters may be laughing now, they’ll probably get the last laugh in the end... mainly because we’ll have keeled over from massive meat induced coronaries.

Personally I did pick up some helpful things from trying out this challenge. I now read the nutritional labels and I understand more of what is going into my body and how that will affect my health. It has, without a doubt, improved my knowledge of what to eat. I also learnt how to make my own bread, cookies and chick pea snacks (although that last one has a lot left to be desired in the flavour department). Finally, I learnt that the key thing to any meal is the spices and flavours used, rather than the meat involved. A well spiced dish can be nourishing and delicious without the need for meat (yeah- I said it).

Dinner for two: On the Tuesday I cooked a dinner for my friend MEATUS MAXIMUS (name changed to protect identity - ha). I cooked brown rice, peas and sweetcorn covered with soy sauce. There were also spicy roast vegetables and spicy wedges. The meal was very well received, although there was a comment that the roast vegetables were too spicy and there was SEVERE disappointment at the lack of tofu. For desert there were vegan chocolate cookies, which by all accounts were friggin AWESOME. Overall the meal cost approximately €10. All recipes were got from http://vegweb.com/

Hardest parts: Remembering not to wear leather stuff (and I look so good in my gimp outfit). Remembering not to put milk into tea. Shopping, as nearly everything has something to do with animals. Not thinking about meat. EGGS, my god I missed eggs...

Recommendation: Definitely think about trying this- I would recommend trying it for longer if you're really really interested. If properly prepared you could easily live like this for quite some time and not really miss meat. Although you would need to do some serious research to make sure you're getting all your vitamins OR, alternatively, stock up on vitamin supplements. Honestly though, if you’re looking for the health benefits with a bit more option then I’d recommend going vegetarian instead. It makes everything much easier, and you can still maintain your air of superiority over us meat eaters.

Conclusion: It was a challenge at times, more so out of inconvenience than anything else. Snacking proved a major bitch as I generally was left to snack on celery and carrots... yum-tastic! I think two weeks of this would have done my head in. I may think about trying to be vegetarian again in the future, but probably, definitely, not vegan. I gave it a 3/5 because it required a lot of preparation and planning, but overall the implementation was fairly simple once you’d done the grunt work.

Special Thanks: Mummy for the vegan shopping and for the cooking advice. Thanks to Yvonne Keane for the suggestion.

Next challenge: Develop a video game in a week. I’m currently deciding between a point-and-click adventure or a role-playing-game. Any suggestions for plot, storyline or genre then please post em! I’m going to see about getting webspace to set it up as well so that ye lot can all play it. Also please keep sending me only challenges! Mucho gracious! 

Random thoughts: Something to watch out for me thinks...

Legend... but no dairy...

Firstly a massive thank you to everybody who has given me suggestions. There's some very interesting challenges that I look forward to trying further down the line but please keep sending me on different challenges because more variety means more interesting, albeit stupid, things for me to do! To leave a challenge or comment- just click the 'comments' button below and leave a message (you'll be surprised at the number of times I've been asked that!) 

Currently I'm learning how to make this site more interesting and interactive. Right now I've embedded a new sexy 'calendar' of future events with potential challenge dates. Obviously nothing can be strictly set in stone at the moment, and part of this whole escapade is 'not' to bind myself to a strict regiment. So expect date changes etc etc blah blah.


I'm also trying to incorporate a sexy 'list' of challenges given, accepted and completed so that you can view what has been suggested by other people... I'll let you know when I figure out how it works.

I decided to start myself off with a interesting challenge: being a vegan for a week or better phrased as becoming a follower of "veganism." The vegan society define this as: "a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

This long winded definition can be summarized to say the following...


1.) No food that is, or came from, an animal.
2.) No clothing that involved causing harm to an animal.
3.) No products tested on animals.


My first sexy challenge will be to do the following starting on Jan 4th and running till Jan 8th


* Obey points 1-3 above.
* Cook a vegan dinner for somebody else at least one night in the week.

Basically I haven't exactly decided the format of this whole fiasco, realistically it's not possible for me to blog daily so I'll probably just blog upon completion, or epic fail, of the challenge. 


How hard do I think this challenge will be? Well, Homer tackles a similar issue head-on with Lisa...


LISA: “I’m going to become a vegetarian”
HOMER: “Does that mean you’re not going to eat any pork?” 
LISE: “Yes” 
HOMER: “Bacon?” 
LISA: “Yes Dad"
HOMER: "Ham?”
LISA: “Dad all those meats come from the same animal”
HOMER: “Right Lisa, some wonderful, magical animal!”"
                             - Season 7 - Lisa the vegetarian



The Simpsons - 705 Lisa the Vegetarian