101 Things To Do Before I Die
A while ago I picked up the book 101 Things To Do Before You Die by Richard Horne (illustrator for Harry Potter books, amongst other things). It’s an great little gimmicky book, which, as the name would suggest, lists 101 things for you to do before you die, with a page for each where you can fill in details. The best gimmick is that at the back there’s a page of star stickers, which you peel off and stick onto the pages as you do the things.
I bought the first book for my girlfriend, who loved it. But I thought it was so fun that I soon bought myself a copy. We both went through, filling in the bits that we’ve done. Fiona had alreadsy completed more than me, but I had part-done quite a few.
There’s a decent website to go with the book, 101thingstodo.co.uk, which has a few supplementary materials (such as updates and maps), as well as a simple forum system.
I was so enthralled with the book that I thought it’d be fun to create a quick website chronicling my own individual efforts to complete the tasks. Of course, there’s no such thing as ‘quickly’ creating a website, so, several weeks later, I can finally announce ‘Frankie Roberto’s 101 Things To Do Before I Die’ [no longer online].
Seeing as how some of the things might take a lifetime to complete (especially ‘Thing 100 – Reach 100 Years of Age’), I had to think about the design, structure, and URL-scheme of the website carefully. I settled on using thing#.xhtml for the page names, as the thing numbers are stable and I know I can support the .xhtml extention forever (hopefully XHTML will be around for a while). I’m using a single MySQL database table to store the data, and a combination of PHP, XML and XSLT to generate the static pages.
Most of the thing pages simply contain some comments on that task at the moment, but some have more details. In particular, Thing 36 illustrates which countries I’ve visited. Thing 98 details the Stop The War demonstration I went on, and is the first thing that I’ve completed. Things 52 and 57 detail which films and books I’ve seen and read from a list of the ‘best ever’.
Comments or bug reports for the minisite are greatly received – I hope you enjoy reading it!
About this post
- Published: Monday 25th October 2004, 2:25 am
- Category:Miscellaneous
- Tags:books, websites
- Comments:17 Comments
Isn’t it a shame, though, that you don’t get to choose the 101 things to do before you die? If I understand well, you’re not even to choose the books and films to watch? It sort of means everyone’s got to do the same things… Sad, sad world…
My girlfriend got me the book for Christmas 2004. I have already completed 7! Nothing is impossible so I will try and do everything, even if it is swimming with a humongous whale! I’ll kill 2 birds with one stone tho cos I’ll get the ‘conquer your fear’ star as well!
Good luck Frankie!
Well done! Would be cool to be able to track your progress too…
Hey Frankie!
I LOVE your site! You’ve inspired me to make a Blog page for the 101 Things To Do site and I’d like to list your blog for all to see. Is this cool with you? Hopefully the 101 Blog will be up in a few days from now… Thanks for the inspiration. Good luck with the Things To Do…
Keep on truckin’
Richard Horne
101 Things To Do Before You Die
Welcome to the new Things To Do Blog Page. A place for you to follow my progress at attempting the 101 Things To Do Before You Die in the book and the progress of other readers…
Things to do before i die.
It must be something to do with New Years. But at this time of year i always get that feeling that i need to be doing things with my life. Achieving things. Ticking off a list of things ive done or seen. Lifes short, you only get one chance…
I’ve got a blog for my 101 too. Actually I was a bit put off by following someone else’s list, but at least it’s a start.
We should start a network of sites and blogs and find a way to track each others progress.
So far I’ve finished quite a few.
Just went to Vegas and did
-Bungee jump
-Hit your targets
-Getting married unusually – we did it in one of those Vegas drive-through chapels.
I’ve also done:
-Go to the Dogs (dog races)
-Leave job you hate
-Learn another language
-Continue your gene pool
-Learn that instrument
-Be a human guinea pig
I’m working on about 3 others currently.
I’ll be posting the full story of each one on my blog.
http://101adventures.blogspot.com/
Good luck guys!
pbaez
Hi there!
Good for you on the list! I also have joined in on the fun. I have been completing stuff in the book but I also have a tradition where I create my own list for my birthday of all the things I want to try and do. I created a website called, whatsonyourlist.com where I keep people posted on all the things I complete and help others create their own lists. I have completed 27 things in the book as of today. I just got back from Hollywood a few hours ago where I wrote my name over a star (in chalk) on the Walk of Fame. Best of luck in completing the book.
Thanks, Brigid
hey cool idea. urealy need 2 hurry up tho as u ave only done 3 or 4.
shigzy
heh heh..-you’re a bit rubbish at this ‘100 things…’ lark aren’t you? how about throwing a dart at a map of the uk one weekend and going there…-you’ll probably end up in watford but, hey..
m.
very cool i will have to start one
Cool site. I have done 3,4,6,7,10,11,12,16,15,30,33,40,41,42,44,49,51,59,64,71,76,78,79,92,95,96, and 101. Some of these things purely by accident, some several times over. But, I’m 48 years old. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
Thanks for the site.
Ed
yo
can I just mention I’ve read the karma sutra and it is in the whole a bloody boring book
hell bits are sexy, liberating etc but on the whole long decriptions of how ones morning aught to be spent arranging flowers, or spitting in baskets suggest that there are only certain tips to take from the text
Heya!
It’s only been a year since I got this book. My ex boyfriend gave me the book and I’ve asked that he help me get a few more done on the list. It’s a great way to make your life more interesting and another way to get people on the bandwagon to do something they normally wouldn’t think to do.
Good luck with your ventures!
Hello maties
I got the book last week after trying to find it for ages! Ive already done 21 of the things and I’m only fifteen! Cant wait to do the rest specially the romance ones. lol! what an interesting life we will all lead. And we might actually meet each other trying to do something an not even know! cool!
p.s. Richard Horne- how many have you completed? :)
hey
I wonder if anyone here’s ever been on 43things.com it’s the same idea, only in an interactive site and is really fun (and kind of addictive!) I love it!
Good luck with your list! I’m going to get this book and do them ALL!
I haven’t gotten much done. Basically nothing noteworthy going on right now, but shrug. I can’t be bothered with anything recently. I guess it doesn’t bother me. Maybe tomorrow. I feel like a bunch of nothing.