Lifelist

Posted July 1, 2007 at 7:00 pm by Severed Head

These are things I must do before I die. Life goals, if you will. You haven’t lived unless you’ve done most of these. This was largely inspired by my friend Verina, who also has a similarly-themed list, with some pretty off-the-wall stuff. When going through this list, count the number of things you have done to see how awesome you are… I am continuously adding onto/changing this, so if you have any ideas, LET ME KNOW. Also, check out 43 things if you want to make one for yourself, and I encourage everyone to make one! They used to have a good list of guidelines you should follow, but no longer. Basically, they were: be reasonable, be specific and don’t make it too long… But I didn’t follow those rules at all, because my life is going to kick everyone else’s lists’ collective asses. BUT. I did decide that I SHOULD have incentives for completing every single item on the list. Particularly, one of the following: A night out to dinner (specifically at my favorite restaurant, Kabuki/Maggiano’s, or my favorite yogurt bar, Yogurtini) or a bottle of alcohol to help build up my bar.

Here is a key:

No Progress/Incomplete
In Progress
Completed

Category Thing to do Notes/Progress ETA/date finished
1. Body modification Grow facial hair and keep it for at least a month I am having a hard time growing non-shitty facial hair currently
2. Body modification Go 3 years without getting a haircut (not to be confused with getting a “hair cut”) Progress: 1, 2 July 31, 2007
3. Body modification Awesome tattoo Progress: 1… Considering skipping out on this one more and more. Actually, the only one I like is the Offspring logo on one of my calves, but I don’t think that would be for quite a while. A friend is thinking about becoming a tattoo artist, and if he’s good after a while, I’d like to get it from him, since shopping for tattoo artists seems to be a complete pain.
4. Career Make it onto the Billboard music charts
5. Career Become a mad scientist I am studying the sciences now and I’m perfectly mad, but I don’t think I’m qualified enough to be called a scientist until I earn my bachelor’s in Chemistry. May 2011
6. Career Open up a music store I don’t see myself doing this until sometime late in life. 2040+
7. Group fun Participate in a massive scavenger hunt Progress: 1 February 13, 2010
8. Group fun Participate in a flash mob I did participate in the undie run, but that doesn’t really count… I’m hoping to get in one soon.
9. Heavy metal Heavy metal “hippie van” A Volkswagen van, but instead of having flowers and hearts and tie dye and stupid shit like that, it is going to have Flying V guitars, skulls, robots, and a shitload of flames
10. Love/Romance Get married I’m hoping to do this, but only once!… That said, if it’s 20 years from now, I’m totally cool with that. Or if it never happens. STILL. It would be kind of cool I guess?
11. Music:Collection Obtain all of the works by Rachmaninoff Progress: 1, 2 2015
12. Music:Collection Obtain all Queen records on vinyl The albums from Queen through Innuendo, original pressings (not the re-releases)
Progress: 1
2011
13. Music:Collection Own over 2 months worth of music/songs Progress: 1, 2 October 10, 2009
14. Music:Collection Listen to all the music in my music collection Progress: 1, 2, 3 2011
15. Music:Compositions Concept album “robot blood” Already in the works… IN MY BRAIN (and, well, I guess some of it is recorded too)… I say Mid 2011 because I feel that, once I am out of college (which will hopefully be May 2011), I will be able to work on this enough to finish it. Late 2011
16. Music:Compositions Write an album in one week A non half-assed album, specifically… Explosions in the Sky pulled this off (though they take 8 days to write it)… I’m pretty sure Bumblefoot did something similar at some point. Apparently Beck and The Velvet Underground did this too, but in shorter time. I’ve always loved this idea.
17. Music:Compositions Write a soundtrack to an already existing film as a concept album See: Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz… I’m thinking something classic like Army of Darkness/Evil Dead, but I don’t know… Something like American Psycho would be great too… There are just so many film scores to my favorite movies that I already feel are perfect, but I’m not quite sure if I even want to attempt to improve upon any of the scores. I might pair this one up with the previous one. A lot of film scores are written in an incredibly short amount of time, so it might be good practice to try to write it as quickly as possible.
18. Music:Compositions Ultimate space rock album Like Space Oddity times a billion
19. Music:Compositions Listen to ultimate space rock album while in space The idea of getting into space is pretty sweet, you have to admit. The idea of listening to the ultimate space rock album in space!? EVEN SWEETER. The Space Island Group plans on having 20,000 people in space by 2020. 2020+
20. Music:Compositions Heavy metal ukulele solo That is, a ukulele solo in a heavy metal context… Not necessarily an entire song or anything
21. Music:Compositions Heavy metal harmony shred trio Kind of like Racer X + 1 more (Similarly, on his G3 tour, Paul Gilbert played Eruption by Van Halen in harmony with his bassist and his second guitarist)
22. Music:Compositions Heavy metal harp solo (not to be confused with the harmonica) Again, a harp solo in a heavy metal context
23. Music:Compositions Heavy metal harmonica solo Ministry does a pretty sweet (though not terribly complex) job on their cover of Roadhouse Blues by The Doors (around 3:03, currently on their MySpace
24. Music:Compositions Heavy metal piano solo Not necessarily just a piano solo in a heavy context! Maybe something like a slightly more violent Prelude in C#
25. Music:Compositions Heavy metal giant piano solo (that is, a solo played on a giant piano) While I could pay $250,000, I think I’d have to go with the crappy $60 version… but edit it to be much bigger and cooler.
26. Music:Compositions Heavy metal harpsichord solo
27. Music:Compositions Heavy metal tap dance/drum solo trade-off I mean come on! How fucking cool would that be?!
28. Music:Compositions Heavy metal whistling solo I cannot whistle, nor is it my intent to ever learn how, but as long as I can write something sweet to whistle that still sounds metal…. That would be sweet
29. Music:Compositions Play a guitar solo that makes someone drop down on their knees and cry Something along the lines of Maggot Brain by Funkadelic… I don’t know if it’s possible to make any piece of music at all more emotional than this. That is to say that, if people don’t drop down to their knees and cry while listening to this, it’s never going to happen, but if I can get even close to this, it will count.
30. Music:Compositions Play a really epic, powerful song on a giant church organ Greater than or equal to than Megalomania by Muse in epic-ness, preferrably something I’ve written though
31. Music:Compositions Full band heavy metal version of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C#
32. Music:Compositions Spontaneously burst into song and dance (with a group of people, preferably) (also, score double points if it is something from Cannibal: The Musical) It has to be with at least one other person and at least one full song UNPLANNED (generally not including instruments, unless I just start playing a song and the whole band joins in unexpectedly because we all just happen to know the same thing and it becomes this really epic buildup thing… but that’s a lot less likely to happen compared to an a capella thing, I think)
33. Music:Compositions Write a symphony Originally, I was more interested in arranging this all for guitars, but I think that I may want to write for for a full symphony, and then maybe also arrange it just for guitars. I took orchestration a while ago, and I was more motivated back then, but now I don’t know if I still want to do this.
34. Music:Learning Learn the entire catalog of ballboy Progress: 1, 2, 3, 4 July 27, 2010
35. Music:Learning Learn the entire catalog of Nirvana I don’t know. October or something?
36. Music:Learning Learn the entire catalog of Blur This will be more tricky, because not all of their songs have direct guitar arrangements. Also, I don’t want to include any side projects here (Gorillaz, Monkey, The Good, The Bad, & The Queen, Graham Coxon, etc.)
37. Music:Learning Learn the entire catalog of The Offspring
38. Music:Learning Learn the entire catalog of Andrew W.K.
39. Music:Learning Muse cover band/Learn the entire catalog of Muse
40. Music:Learning CAKE cover band/Learn the entire catalog of CAKE
41. Music:Learning Learn the entire catalog of Meat Puppets
42. Music:Learning Learn the entire catalog of Static-X
43. Music:Learning Dethklok cover band/Learn the entire catalog of Dethklok
44. Music:Learning Learn the entire catalog of Led Zeppelin
45. Music:Learning Primus cover band/Learn the entire catalog of Primus (and related (Les Claypool’s various projects at least))
46. Music:Learning Radiohead cover band/Learn the entire catalog of Radiohead
47. Music:Learning Queen cover band/Learn the entire catalog of Queen (and related (Brian May, especially))
48. Music:Learning Learn the entire catalog of Jimi Hedrix
49. Music:Learning Learn the entire catalog of Paul Gilbert (and related (At least Racer X… I don’t know about Mr. Big… I guess if I could play Paul’s solo stuff, Mr. Big can’t be that hard))
50. Music:Learning Local H cover band/Learn the entire catalog of Local H I would like to make a guitar like Scott Lucas’s first.
51. Music:Learning Learn to play Recuerdos De La Alhambra At some point, I’ll have to grow out my nails again
52. Music:Learning Cover the entire soundtrack to Earthbound w/full rock band/beyond Not unlike the xoc cover of Super Mario World… I’ve finally fired up the project, though I anticipate it taking a few years. The title is currently Broken Harmonica. With it, I plan to release PSI Rockin Ω, the project aimed at covering the entire soundtrack (culminating AT LEAST 3 hours of music), as well as The Devil’s Machine (a bunch of heavy metal covers of Earthbound songs) 2011+
53. Music:Learning Go away somewhere for a month and focus entirely on music with no contact with the outside world That is, no television or cell phones other technology, only what is really necessary to make music; also, not necessarily by myself…Maybe in conjunction with “Write an album in one week”
54. Music:Career Play in a jam metal band A lot of metal is pretty formulaic, but to keep some of those driving metal rhythms and do something improvisational the whole time would be pretty fun.
55. Music:Career Play a lot of shows A lot… If I recall correctly, Local H played about 350+ shows in a year and a half. That is the kind of shit that I would love to do. I want to do way more, but I suppose 100 would be considered “a lot”, or at least, enough to where I feel I can cross this off.
56. Music:Career Tour the world (with a band)
57. Music:Career Be recognized on the street/somewhere in public as the guitarist for my band That is, not having met the person before
58. Music:Instrument-specific Own 30+ guitars Progress: 1
59. Music:Instrument-specific Master the guitar Progress: 1
60. Music:Instrument-specific Master the use of guitar feedback I guess just play an entire solo
61. Music:Instrument-specific Signature guitar with Ibanez (endorsement)
62. Music:Instrument-specific Build/piece together my own guitar Probably nothing I make wholly myself can ever be quite as awesome as the Ibanez Wizard neck… which is why I say “piece together”. I really like the idea of doing what Scott Lucas in Local H does, which is, put a bass pickup under the bottom 2 strings, and have a separate output that goes to an octave pedal and a bass amp. My future guitar project is a guitar with the Ibanez Wizard neck, the bass pickups, perhaps some sort of pedal built into my guitar Matt Bellamy-style, and a zebra paint job.
63. Music:Instrument-specific Master the bass I have a bass known as The Crushinator! I want to be able to play anything Les Claypool can play, basically… That is, when I have mastered Tommy the Cat, I think this will be complete… Also, his version on the four-string fretless bass, not the six-string fretless bass since those are a bit harder to come by.
64. Music:Instrument-specific Master the drums This isn’t very specific, so now I have a very specific goal, which I think, will show my competence in drum-playing: Be able to play through Twelve Angry Months by Local H on the drums, one of my favorite albums of all time. Assumedly, if I can do this, I’ll be able to play some other stuff too. Since I am in a an apartment right now, it makes this goal really difficult. I’d like some drum pads first, so I can work on this.
65. Music:Instrument-specific Learn to play the harp I need a harp first
66. Music:Instrument-specific Learn to play the organ Progress: 1
67. Music:Instrument-specific Master the theremin Basically, just compose a piece that features the theremin as the lead instrument (or cover something?)
68. Music:Misc. See my top bands at least once Progress: 1
69. Music:Misc. See all of Rachmaninov’s concertos performed live I’ve already seen No. 1, but what I see next really depends on what the Phoenix Symphony decides to do!… So I’ve only got Concertos 2 through 4 left!
70. Nerdity Show up to a movie premiere dressed up as one of the characters
71. Nerdity Show up to a movie premiere dressed up as a character from a different movie For example, Darth Vader at Star Trek
72. Nerdity Spend an entire day watching all of the Lords of the Rings movies I wanted to watch all of the extended versions, but I also wanted it to include The Hobbit. Since it’s not going to be out until 2012, it might be a few years for this, so I suppose, for now, I am satisfied with simply doing the three main films until the others are released on DVD… But as soon as The Hobbit DVD is released, the new rules are in effect! So it’s probably better I do this sooner rather than later.
73. Nerdity Spend an entire day watching all the Star Wars movies consecutively I want to watch all 6, in order from episode 1 through 6, which will include the remade versions, as much as people may hate it. This doesn’t include the Christmas special or the animated Clone Wars movie.
74. Nerdity Watch every movie on the IMDB top 100 (As of 4/8/09)
Progress: 1
75. Nerdity Own all Dethklok/Metalocalypse memorabilia Even the SDCC action figures!
76. Productions Write a screenplay
77. Productions Write a novel
78. Reading Read all of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels chronologically (I am including his other books and works in here too, which means Happy Birthday, Wanda June, Fates Worse than Death, etc.) Progress: 1
79. Residence Live in Seattle
80. Residence Own a house (not just rent)
81. Residence Own my own recording studio
82. Skills Learn to lucid dream I have a book, and I have lucid dreamt once, but I intend to be able to do it semi-regularly. The number one thing holding me back right now is my sleep schedule. I’d like to be at a point in my life where, after I wake up, I have time to write down my dreams, since this is a very important aspect of lucid dreaming. Normally, it takes me like half an hour or more because I can remember so many details… So. I guess I’ll be finishing this one whenever I can get on a slightly better schedule of sleeping.
83. Skills Learn to ballroom dance
84. Skills Learn to swing dance
85. Skills Learn to juggle
86. Skills Learn to cook Progress: 1, 2
87. Skills Learn to bake Progress: 1
88. Skills Learn to give a good massage
89. Skills Surf
90. Skills Learn to drive a stickshift I was going to learn on my dad’s car, but he sold it and got a car with an automatic transmission.
91. Skills Learn to raise both eyebrows independently I can only raise my left eyebrow right now so I am halfway there!… This is the earliest picture I could find of myself doing it, by the way
92. Skills Learn to fold t-shirts insanely fast
93. Skills Learn to solve a Rubik’s cube Here is another site that tells you how… First I need a Repubik’s cube though.
94. Skills Learn to say the alphabet backwards really, really fast Progress: 1, 2 February 1, 2009
95. Skills Get good at the claw arcade game There are 2 occasions where I have gotten something on the first try, a black dog I’ve named Sirius and a tie dye frog I’ve given to Erin… I figure, if I can do this 5 times in my life (first try ONLY), I will officially be “good” at the claw arcade game.
96. Skills Learn to tie a tie
97. Skills Learn CPR
98. Travel:General Hot air balloon ride
99. Travel:General Go on a cruise I’ve been on both a cruise tour and a dinner cruise while in Seattle, but I want to go on an overnight cruise.
100. Travel:General Crazy road trip One that lasts more than a week, that is
101. Travel:General Follow one of my favorite bands on tour Touring with them would count too
102. Travel:Continental to the United States Playboy mansion visit
103. Travel:Continental to the United States See Conan O’Brien’s live show in person Missed the Phoenix show! I guess I’ll see whatever late night show he’s on next
104. Travel:Continental to the United States Watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in person
105. Travel:Continental to the United States Go to E3 Or, maybe, since E3 is invite-only these days, E for All would be better.
106. Travel:Continental to the United States See a Broadway show on Broadway
107. Travel:Continental to the United States Spend a night in the most bizarre suite I can find in Vegas
108. Travel:Continental to the United States Visit the Hershey Chocolate Factory in Pennsylvania
109. Travel:Continental to the United States See the Northern Lights
110. Travel:Continental to the United States Mardi Gras in New Orleans
111. Travel:Continental to the United States Attend a giant music festival Something like Bonnaroo or Glastonbury or Coachella or Lollapalooza or Summerfest… I’d prefer it to take a few days and be an overnight thing, not something crappy like Edgefest!
112. Travel:Other continents Play guitar on every continent (at different times) So far, I’ve only got North America down… The really tricky one is going to be Antarctica
113. Travel:Other continents See the Great Pyramid of Giza In Giza, Egypt (Only remaining wonder of the ancient world)
114. Travel:Other continents See the Catacombs of Paris
115. Travel:Other continents See the Great Wall of China This, and the next 6 things in the list are all places which make up the “wonders of the medieval world”
116. Travel:Other continents See the Taj Mahal in Agra, India In Agra, India
117. Travel:Other continents See the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing In Nanjing, China… If it’s still around. It’s supposedly being reconstructed, but I can’t find much info…
118. Travel:Other continents See the Hagia Sophia In Istanbul, Turkey
119. Travel:Other continents See the Leaning Tower of Pisa In Pisa, Italy
120. Travel:Other continents See Stonehenge In the UK… Maybe re-enact some Earthbound scenes?
121. Travel:Other continents See the Colosseum In Rome, Italy
122. Travel:Other continents Visit Akihabara in Tokyo
123. Travel:Other continents Stay in a capsule hotel for one night (probably in Japan)
124. Travel:Other continents Spend a night North of the Arctic Circle around the summer solstice and spend a night watching the sun circle around the horizon
125. Travel:Other continents Spend a night in an ice hotel All the while, assumedly, listening to the Zora cavern music
126. Travel:Other continents Stay at a hotel under the sea
127. Travel:Other continents Listen to The Good, The Bad, and The Queen (a concept album about London) by The Good, The Bad, and The Queen while in London
128. Travel:Other continents Eat authentic italian food (in Italy)
129. Travel:Misc. Throw a dart into a map and travel to where it lands
130. Travel:Misc. Go to a topless beach (way better than a nude beach) ….Maybe a nude beach. Maybe. I’d have to be with the right people. I’m not so much afraid of my own nudity.
131. Video games Beat all of the Final Fantasy games Progress: 1
132. Video games All endings of Chrono Trigger Progress: 1
133. Video games Master Starcraft Now that Starcraft II is out, I basically want to get through all the mission acheviements (to beat all of them, it generally requires hard difficulty–and I’ve already gotten most of the ones that you can do on Normal)!
134. Weeklong/extended length Day at the spa
135. Weeklong/extended length Spend a whole day in bed (voluntarily, not in a hospital) (also, awake!)
136. Weeklong/extended length Vow of silence for a week
137. Weeklong/extended length Try living a 28-hour day Also seen here… I figure I’ll try this over some summer or something when I have a job that could allow me to have such a schedule. Or when I’m unemployed. I’d like to do it for at least a month so I could get used to it. I tried planning it out over a Winter Break once, but it would require me to be asleep on New Year’s and Christmas morning.
138. Lifelong No drugs Since I have not so far, I am going mark this as finished. And by no drugs, I don’t mean pain meds or anything that a doctor actually prescribed to me, obviously. Since birth
139. Lifelong Record every show I play Every show that I can…
140. Misc. Fill an entire room with playpen balls Sources to help: 1, 2, 3…. Wow this is expensive! If you look at the links, the creators of XKCD finally did this (as well as some others) by just filling up a smaller area. I think I’d like to do this too. To fill 7 feet by 5 feet, about the size of a Queen-sized bed, with 3 feet deep full of 3″ crushproof balls, I would need about two hundred dollars to do it. But I’d also need that amount of room. Maybe after I get a house, I could get one eventually… 2011
141. Misc. Attend the Feast of San Gennaro in LA Strongly considering going this year September 24-26, 2010
142. Misc. See one, if not all, of my favorite comedians live This includes, but is not limited to: Jim Gaffigan, Stephen Wright, Lewis Black, and Christopher Titus. It looks as if Jim Gaffigan is coming to Phoenix on November 27th, so I will hopefully be able to see him then November 27, 2010
143. Misc. Youtube stardom Progress: 1 February 2010 or earlier
144. Misc. Put up posters in my room You don’t know how hard this is for me! I’m hoping to finish putting up the majority of my posters by the end of March, but it might take until April to get everything I want up…. Which is definitely not looking like the case. So maybe May… But it’s well past that. So. Like. End of July, 2010? I dunno… End of July, 2010?
145. Misc. Make a really elaborate dominos set up (I am talking falling buckets and strings and marbles on ramps and shit) Doesn’t have to be this big, but that is still fucking awesome.
146. Misc. Go skinny dipping Preferably with other people… Preferably some hot babes!
147. Misc. Spend a night in a haunted house (alone!) To clarify, an actual house that is supposed to be haunted. Not some stupid theme park or something.
148. Misc. See a lunar eclipse December 2010
149. Misc. See a solar eclipse The next one in North America won’t appear until 2012 or 2017 May 20, 2012
150. Misc. See the green flash
151. Misc. See a moonbow/lunar rainbow
152. Misc. Create my own firework(s)
153. Misc. Memorize a really great speech from a movie… More than likely the end to Team America or the funeral scene of Synecdoche, New York
154. Misc. Get my portrait painted
155. Misc. Get a psychic reading I don’t know about this one. I hate psychics so much, I can’t imagine this turning out all right…
156. Misc. Be free from debt My guess is it’ll take a few years after I’m out of school… And who knows when the hell that will even be? 2015+
157. Misc. Give a really good speech With a standing ovation and all that shit!
158. Misc. Pull off some totally awesome prank (particularly on ASU/at ASU?)
159. Misc. Spend a night in the wild (that is, not a campground, just the woods or desert or something)
160. Misc. Have better posture I need to come up with a way to measure this… I was going to start working out over the summer, but now I’m doing 40 hours a week starting at 6 am, making it really hard to get up early to work out. At my work, I do have a really sweet ergonomic chair though, so we’ll see how things look in late 2010… Late 2010
161. Misc. Take a self portrait/mugshot every day for 365 days in a row I’m using dailymugshot.com/. My original idea was that if I skip a day, I’d have to start all over, but that could take forever if I did screw up, god forbid. So I decided: screw that rule. But I will try to do it literally every single day, either way. September 21st, 2010
162 Misc. Drink tea in a Japanese tea garden I found a Japanese Tea Garden in Phoenix. The tea ceremonies happen the 2nd Saturdays of each month, so I made reservations for December. December 12, 2009
163. Misc. Be in a non-violent food fight I say non-violent because there were a bunch of violent ones at my high school, and I thought those were dumb, and I still think they were dumb. It was more like a garbage fight than an actual fight. Cream pies would be fine. I wouldn’t mind if it was premeditated at all. Saw this planned out and it seemed like a good idea… As I recall, At Nirvana’s release party for Nevermind, they had a food fight, so why couldn’t I if I ever release an album on a big record label? The main menu could be like cream pies and jello in the shape of guitars and stuff… Hmmmmm….
164. Misc. Build a snowman Lived in Phoenix all my life… Makes this a bit hard
165. Misc. Sweet HTMac 1

Last edit: August 9, 2010
Thanks, 43things.com