Solar Eclipse Day

Monday was a day which many bucketlisters could tick off an item on their list... I unfortunately am not one of them. I was incapable of travelling to the best viewing zone, but living in southern Wisconsin we were still well within range to see the eclipse. So, even though I wasn't going to see the full thing, I felt that seeing most of it, was really good enough.

However, come Monday and southern Wisconsin was covered with clouds and so no viewing was really possible. BOOO. I had planned on taking a work break and heading out but it wasn't really worth it. As it was, I could tell when the Eclipse happened as the sky got noticeably darker. All of a sudden it felt like the murky gray clouds were going to storm on me, but it wasn't.

Luckily, the next Solar Eclipse is due out in less than 7 years. Which is a pretty amazing amount of frequency. Even more amazing, the next Eclipse is set to pass through almost perpendicularly over southern Illinois and is a much larger band than this one was. So chances are, for Wisconsin it will be a better eclipse anyway,

That being said, there is a very high chance that I will travel for the next one. I noticed that the 2024 one will be going straight over my brother's head. So I may try to enjoy the Eclipse with my family.

Of Movies and TV Lists

Today I am adding my Movies and TV Bucket Lists to the grand list of buckets. I feel like these lists require a bit of explanation in addition to just posting it as they are being handled differently. (The Reading category will have similar weirdness to it.)

As I mentioned in an early post on bucket lists. I wanted to make sure that each list item was challenging. That I would get to the end of each and feel like I have accomplished something real and concrete. I feel with video games, this was a fairly easy accomplishment. Many video games make you work for winning and have decent play times to make you feel like you've accomplished something when you finally finish it (not to mention there is definitely an increasing difficult in most video games as you progress). There are actually a couple of games in which I decided to group because some are shorter than others, this can be seen in Portal & Portal 2. Portal 1 was a fairly quick game comparatively and I think pairing them makes both stronger. Another aspect of this is that I would say a good majority of the games that I have chosen are RPG in genre, which also tends to be the more time consuming genre.

But when I sat down and thought about Movies, I realized there wasn't as much of an accomplishment in just a movie. Even long movies only run around 3 hours in length. You get a little better when you start looking to series... which if you are looking at, say, The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition series, that is about 10 hours. But even that seems rather mundane. I mean, unlike video games which tend to require skill, practice, and patience. Movies and TV just require time. I could do some weird things like "Watch 'Midnight in Paris' in Paris" or "Watch 'Lord of the Rings' in New Zealand," but that may be pretty circumstantial, and out of my power to complete.

So I instead went with hours to consume. This has created lists within lists. I decided to break down what movies and TV shows I should be watching for bucket list items by categories. Movie categories are range about 35 to 40 hours each, and TV categories are a mighty 150 to 200 hours each. Now I know what you are thinking, this is a pretty big disparity between the two. Why not have TV shows that are shorter and Movies be longer and meet in the middle somewhere around 75 hours?

This is a good dilemma. There are a few reasons that I can think of that I came up with the hours. For movies, I actually started at around 25 hours worth and slowly ticked it up, adding movies to each category. What I found was that around the 32 hour mark in almost every category that I had, there was a drop off in quality. I started making reaches for movies that should be included, which is fine to a degree. But I soon realized that adding 15 hours of movies would create a glut of mediocre entries, and I felt that overall would take away from the category.

On the TV side, well good TV tends to consume a ton of time. Consider Friends or Big Bang Theory, these are half hour programs (which in reality are around 24 minutes each), this seems small until you realize there are 200+ episodes. Even a show that only lasted for 12 episodes (Firefly for instance), lands around 10 hours. Because of this, I have considered breaking TV out of groups entirely, and indeed I have for a few key biggies. But then I have a disparity. some shows are ginormous (American Masters are around 300 hours), and some shows are small. I came to what is a happy medium of 200-ish hours give or take 50 as this seems to be about right. You get real content and most categories are only 2 or 3 TV shows large. I did something else to also aid in variety... I recognized that within a TV series, every season is not equal. So with longer series, you will see me picking out seasons a little bit. For instance, Stargate only has the first 7 seasons because it really became garbage after that.

The last thing I really wanted to talk about is watching these. I could actually instantly mark off a ton of these movies and shows. But then I decided that many, I haven't seen in over 20 years and I don't really remember much of them. So instead of picking and choosing what I recall well and what I don't, I've decided to just bite the bullet and re-watch all of it. Although, to be honest, I might just watch some in the background while doing other things. I mean I have seen The Matrix so much, I have it almost memorized, I don't really need another watching, but then I like it so much I will.

If you want to check out the latest updates to my lifelist, you can check it out here.

My Bucket List

Ok, I'm going to start posting my current Bucket List, but I'm doing it in pieces. This is largely because some other lists that I have, I am debating exactly what I do or don't want on them before I publish them. This list will grow soon!

Games

All games must be won/completed. Does not need to be most difficult mode or attain all achievements. Some games may need a creative goal attached to dictate a "win" state.

1. Assassin's Creed
2. Baldur's Gate 1
3. Baldur's Gate 2
4. Banjo-Kazooie
5. Beyond Good & Evil
6. Borderlands 1 & 2
7. Bravely Default & Second
8. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
9. Chrono Trigger
10. Chrono Cross
11. Civilization VI
12. Dark Souls 2
13. Divine Divinity
14. Donkey Kong Country
15. Dragon Quest VIII
16. Earthbound
17. Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
18. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
19. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
20. Final Fantasy IV
21. Final Fantasy Tactics
22. Final Fantasy VI
23. Final Fantasy VII
24. Fire Emblem: Awakening
25. God of War 2
26. Grand Theft Auto III
27. Icewind Dale
28. Icewind Dale 2
29. Ico
30. Katamari Demaci
31. Kingdom Hearts
32. Kingdom Hearts 2
33. Legend of Zelda; Breath of the Wild
34. Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
35. Legend of Zelda; Ocarina of Time
36. Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker
37. Mario Kart 64
38. Mass Effect
39. Mass Effect 2
40. Mass Effect 3
41. Metal Gear Solid
42. Papers, Please
43. Pillars of Eternity
44. Pokemon Diamond/Pearl
45. Portal 1 & 2
46. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
47. PuzzleQuest
48. Red Dead Redemption
49. Secret of Mana
50. Shadow of the Colossus
51. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona IV
52. SimCity 2000
53. Sonic: The Hedgehog
54. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 
55. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2
56. Super Mario 64
57. Super Mario Bros. 3
58. Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2
59. Super Mario World
60. The Last of Us
61. The Secret of Monkey Island
62. The Sims 3
63. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
64. Tomb Raider
65. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
66. Vagrant Story
67. Valkyrie Profile
68. Warcraft III: Reign of Terror
69. Xenoblade Chronicles 1
70. Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Movies 

Run times are in [] after the item. For movies, this is minutes, for categories it is hours & minutes. Each Movie Item should take around 37 hours combined.

71. All-Time Super Hero [2396 - 39hr, 56m]
1. The Avengers [143]
2. Batman (1989) [126]
3. Batman Begins [140]
4. The Crow [102]
5. The Dark Knight [152]
6. The Dark Knight Rises [164]
7. Deadpool [108]
8. Guardians of the Galaxy [121]
9. The Incredibles [115]
10. Iron Man [126]
11. Logan [137]
12. Spider-Man (2002) [121]
13. Superman (1978) [143]
14. Unbreakable [106]
15. Watchmen [215]
16. Wonder Woman [141]
17. X-Men [104]
18. X-Men: Days of Future Past [132]
72. Animated [2155 - 35hr, 55m]
1. 101 Dalmations [79]
2. Beauty & the Beast [84]
3. Fantasia (1940) [125]
4. Finding Nemo [100]
5. Inside Out [95]
6. The Iron Giant [86]
7. Kubo and the Two Strings [101]
8. The LEGO Movie [100]
9. The Lion King [88]
10. The Little Mermaid [83]
11. My Neighbor Totoro [86]
12. The Nightmare Before Christmas [76]
13. Pinocchio [88]
14. Shaun the Sheep [85]
15. Shrek [90]
16. Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs [83]
17. Spirited Away [125]
18. Tangled [100]
19. Toy Story [81]
20. Toy Story 2 [92]
21. Toy Story 3 [103]
22. Wall-E [98]
23. Wreck-It Ralph [101]
73. Classic Action [2249 - 37h, 29m]
1. 007: Goldfinger [110]
2. 007: On Her Majesty's Secret Service [142]
3. Aliens [137]
4. Commando [90]
5. Die Hard [131]
6. The Dirty Dozen [150]
7. Escape from New York [99]
8. First Blood [93]
9. The French Connection [104]
10. The Fugitive [130]
11. Hard Boiled [128]
12. Jaws [124]
13. The Killer [111]
14. King Kong [134]
15. La Femme Nikita [117]
16. Lethal Weapon [110]
17. Point Break [122]
18. Predator [107]
19. Top Gun [110]
74. Classic Adventure [2247 - 37h, 27m]
1. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) [102]
2. The African Queen [105]
3. Around the World in 80 Days (1956) [175]
4. Bridge Over the River Kwai [161]
5. The Great Escape [172]
6. Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark [115]
7. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom [118]
8. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [127]
9. Joe vs the Volcano [102]
10. The Jungle Book (1967) [78]
11. King Solomen's Mines [100]
12. Last of the Mohicans [112]
13. Lawrence of Arabia [216]
14. Lost Horizon [97]
15. The Man Who Would be King [129]
16. Romancing the Stone [106]
17. The Thief of Baghdad [106]
18. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre [126]
75. Classic Comedies [1805 - 30h, 5m]
1. Airplane! [88]
2. Animal House [109]
3. Annie Hall [93]
4. Blazing Saddles [93]
5. Caddyshack [98]
6. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels [110]
7. Duck Soup [68]
8. The General [67]
9. Ghostbusters [104]
10. The Great Dictator
11. Groundhog Day [101]
12. The Jerk [94]
13. Monty Python and the Holy Grail [91]
14. Monty Python's Life of Brian [94]
15. Pee Wee's Big Adventure
16. Raising Arizona
17. Some Like it Hot [121]
18. Spaceballs [96]
19. This is Spinal Tap [82]
20. Three Amigos [104]
21. Trading Places [96]
22. When Harry Met Sally [96]
76. Classic Drama [2402 - 40h, 2m]
1. All About Eve [138]
2. Apocalypse Now [153]
3. Carlito's Way [144]
4. Casablanca [102]
5. Citizen Kane [119]
6. The Godfather [175]
7. The Godfather 2 [202]
8. Gone With the Wind [238]
9. Goodfellas [146]
10. It's a Wonderful Life [130]
11. On the Waterfront [98]
12. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [133]
13. Raging Bull [129]
14. Rain Man [133]
15. Rocky [120]
16. Taxi Driver [113]
17. To Kill a Mockingbird [129]
77. Classic Sci-Fi [2260 - 37h, 40m]
1. Alien [117]
2. Back to the Future [96]
3. Brazil [132]
4. Close Encounters of the Third Kind [137]
5. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) [92]
6. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial [115]
7. Forbidden Planet [98]
8. Frankenstein (1931) [70]
9. Metropolis [153]
10. Planet of the Apes [112]
11. The Road Warrior [94]
12. Robocop (1987) [102]
13. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan [113]
14. Star Wars: A New Hope [121]
15. Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back [124]
16. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi [131]
17. Terminator [107]
18. Terminator 2 [137]
19. Total Recall [113]
20. Tron [96]
78. Coming of Age [2276 - 37h, 56m]
1. Almost Famous [122]
2. American Graffiti [110]
3. Big [104]
4. Boyhood [165]
5. Boyz N the Hood [112]
6. The Breakfast Club [97]
7. Dazed and Confused [102]
8. Dead Poets Society [128]
9. Fast Times at Ridgemont High [90]
10. Ferris Bueller's Day Off [103]
11. Good Will Hunting [126]
12. The Goonies [114]
13. The Graduate [106]
14. Juno [96]
15. My Girl [102]
16. The Outsiders [91]
17. The Perks of Being a Wildflower [102]
18. Rebel Without a Cause [111]
19. Say Anything... [100]
20. Stand By Me [89]
21. Y Tu Mama Tambien [106]
79. Documentaries [2337 - 38hrs, 57m]
1. An Inconvenient Truth [96]
2. Bowling for Columbine [120]
3. The Fog of War [107]
4. Grey Gardens [94]
5. Grizzly Man [103]
6. Hearts and Minds [112]
7. Hoop Dreams [190]
8. Inside Job [105]
9. Jiro Dreams of Sushi [81]
10. The Last Waltz [117]
11. King of Kong; A Fistful of Quarters [79]
12. Man on Wire [94]
13. Man With a Movie Camera [68]
14. Night and Fog [32]
15. Sans Soleil [100]
16. Shoah [566]
17. Sound and Fury [80]
18. The Thin Blue Line [103]
19. The Times of Harvey Milk [90]
80. Fantasy [2310 - 38 hrs, 30m]
1. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen [126]
2. Being John Malkovich [112]
3. The Dark Crystal [93]
4. Edward Scissorhands [105]
5. Highlander [116]
6. How to Train Your Dragon [98]
7. Labyrinth [101]
8. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring [208]
9. Lord of the Rings: Two Towers [223]
10. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King [251]
11. The Neverending Story [102]
12. Pan's Labyrinth [118]
13. The Princess Bride [98]
14. Stardust [127]
15. Who Framed Roger Rabbit [104]
16. Willow [126]
17. Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory [100]
18. Wizard of Oz (1939) [102]
81. Kung Fu [2273 - 37h, 53m]
1. 13 Assassins [141]
2. The 35th Chamber of Shaolin [115]
3. The Chinese Connection [107]
4. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon [120]
5. Drunken Master II/ Legend of the Drunken Master [102]
6. The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter [98]
7. Enter the Dragon [102]
8. Fist of Fury [120]
9. Five Deadly Venoms [97]
10. Hero [107]
11. IP Man [106]
12. Iron Monkey [85]
13. Master of the Flying Guillotine [81]
14. Kill Bill Vol. 1 [111]
15. Kill Bill Vol. 2 [137]
16. Kung-Fu Hustle [99]
17. Once Upon a Time in China [134]
18. Ong-Bak [105]
19. The Prodigal Son [100]
20. Seven Samurai [207]
82. Modern Action Movies [2261  - 37h, 41m]
1. 007: Casino Royale [144]
2. Bad Boys [119]
3. The Bourne Identity [119]
4. The Bourne Supremecy [108]
5. The Bourne Ultimatum [115]
6. Domino [127]
7. Face/Off [138]
8. John Wick [101]
9. John Wick 2 [122]
10. Mission: Impossible [110]
11. Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol [132]
12. Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation [131]
13. The Raid: Redemption [101]
14. The Rock [136]
15. Rush Hour [98]
16. Shanghai Noon [110]
17. Speed [116] 
18. Taken [93]
19. True Lies [141]
83. Modern Adventure Movies [2345  - 39h, 5m]
1. 300 [117]
2. Embrace the Serpent [125]
3. Cast Away [143]
4. Congo [109]
5. Into the Wild [148]
6. Jurassic Park [127]
7. Jurassic World [124]
8. Fool's Gold [112]
9. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull [122]
10. Life of Pi [127]
11. Lost City of Z [141]
12. National Treasure [131]
13. National Treasure: Book of Shadows [124]
14. Nim's Island [96]
15. O Brother, Where Art Thou? [107]
16. Sherlock Holmes [128]
17. Pirates of the Caribbean [143]
18. The Mummy (1999) [125]
19. Up [96]
84. Modern Comedies [2273 - 37h, 53m]
1. The 40-Year Old Virgin [116]
2. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy [94]
3. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery [89]
4. Best in Show [90]
5. The Big Lebowski [117]
6. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America... [84]
7. Bruce Almighty [101]
8. Burn After Reading [96]
9. Dumb and Dumber [107]
10. Clueless [97]
11. Fierce Creatures [93]
12. Galaxy Quest [102]
13. The Hangover [100]
14. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle [88]
15. High Fidelity [113]
16. Mean Girls [97]
17. Meet the Parents [108]
18. Midnight in Paris [94]
19. Napoleon Dynamite [96]
20. Office Space [89]
21. Shaun of the Dead [99]
22. Superbad [113]
23. Zoolander [90]
85. Modern Drama [2240 - 37h, 20m]
1. 12 Years a Slave [134]
2. A Beautiful Mind [135]
3. American Beauty [122]
4. Black Swan [108]
5. Boogie Nights [155]
6. Fargo [98]
7. Fight Club [139]
8. Forrest Gump [144]
9. The King's Speech [118]
10. Life is Beautiful [116]
11. Lost in Translation [102]
12. Million Dollar Baby [132]
13. Moonlight [91]
14. Mystic River [138]
15. Saving Private Ryan [169]
16. Schindler's List [195]
17. The Shawshank Redemption [144]
86. Modern Sci-Fi Movies [2406 - 40h, 6m]
1. Avatar [162]
2. Children of Men [109]
3. Contact [150]
4. District 9 [112]
5. Donnie Darko [113]
6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [108]
7. Ex-Machina [108]
8. Inception [148]
9. Interstellar [169]
10. Mad Max: Fury Road [120]
11. The Martian [144]
12. The Matrix [136]
13. Minority Report [145]
14. Moon [97]
15. Primer [77]
16. Serenity [119]
17. Snowpiercer [126]
18. Star Trek [127]
19. Star Wars: The Force Awakens [136]
87. Noir [2277 - 37h, 57m]
1. Alphaville [99]
2. The Asphalt Jungle [112]
3. The Big Sleep [114]
4. Blade Runner [117]
5. Blood Simple [99]
6. Chinatown [130]
7. Double Indemnity [107]
8. Gilda [110]
9. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang [103]
10. Kiss Me Deadly (1955) [106]
11. LA Confidential [138]
12. Laura [88]
13. The Long Goodbye [122]
14. Maltese Falcon [100]
15. Memento [113]
16. Out of the Past [97]
17. Port of Shadows [91]
18. Se7en [127]
19. Strangers on a Train [101]
20. Sunset Boulevard [110]
21. The Third Man [93]
22. I am a Fugitive in the Chain Gang
23. the docks of new york
24. Hunter of the night (or something)
25. Touch of Evil [95]
88. Stanley Kubrick's Movies [1783 - 29h, 43m]
1. Fear and Desire [62]
2. Killer's Kiss [67]
3. The Killing [85]
4. Paths of Glory [88]
5. Spartacus [197]
6. Lolita [153]
7. Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb [95]
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey [149]
9. A Clockwork Orange [136]
10. Barry Lyndon [184]
11. The Shining [146]
12. Full Metal Jacket [116]
13. Eyes Wide Shut [159]
14. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence [146]
89. Wes Anderson Movies [665 - 11h, 5m]
1. Bottle Rocket [91]
2. Rushmore [93]
3. The Royal Tenenbaums [110]
4. The Darjeeling Limited [91]
5. Fantastic Mr. Fox [87]
6. Moonrise Kingdom [94]
7. The Grand Budapest Hotel [99]
8. Isle of Dogs 
90. Westerns [2263 - 37h, 43m]
1. The Assassination of Jesse James by Coward Robert Ford [160]
2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [110]
3. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly [178]
4. High Noon [85]
5. The Magnificent Seven (1960) [128]
6. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance [123]
7. Once Upon a Time in the West [164]
8. The Outlaw Josey Wales [135]
9. The Ox-Bow Incident [75]
10. Red River [133]
11. Rio Bravo [141]
12. The Searchers [119]
13. Shane [118]
14. Stagecoach [96]
15. Tombstone [130]
16. True Grit (2010) [110]
17. Unforgiven [131]
18. The Wild Bunch [135]

TV

Run times are in [] after the item. For TV, this is minutes, for categories it is hours & minutes. Each TV Item should take around 100 to 200 hours combined.

91. 80s Sitcoms [8508 - 141h, 48m]
1. Cheers (First 9 Seasons + Finale) [5772]
2. Taxi [2736]
92. American Masters [18000] [300h]
93. Best Reality TV [12514 - 208h, 34m]
1. Amazing Race (Seasons 1,5,10) [1672]
2. Man vs. Wild [2970]
3. The Osbournes [1248]
4. The Real World (First 4 Seasons) [1848]
5. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (First 2 Seasons) [2970]
6. Top Chef (First 3 Seasons) [1806]
94. Classic British TV [6965 - 116h, 5m]
1. Blackadder [810]
2. Dad's Army [2400]
3. Fawlty Towers [180, 190] [370]
4. Monty Python's Flying Circus [401, 393, 385, 231] [1410]
5. Porridge [625]
6. Yes, Minister [1350]
95. Classic Drama [9723 - 162h, 3m]
1. Hill Street Blues (First 5 Seasons) [4998]
2. L.A. Law (First 5 Seasons) [4725]
96. Classic Documentary [7227 - 120hrs, 27m]
1. Award-nominated Nova Episodes (25 episodes) [1500]
2. The Civil War [690]
3. Connections [1440]
4. Fishing With John [147]
5. The Great War [1040]
6. The Nazis: A Warning From History [289]
7. The Up Series [769]
8. The World at War [1352]
97. Classic Sitcoms [8544 - 142h, 24m]
1. I Love Lucy [4344]
2. Mary Tyler Moore [4200]
98. Classic Sci-Fi [16147 - 269h, 7m]
1. Quantum Leap [4365]
2. Star Trek: The Next Generation [7832]
3. Star Trek: The Original Series [3950]
99. Inside the Actor's Studio (20325) [338h, 45m]
100. Modern British [12085 - 201hrs, 25m]
1. Downton Abbey [408, 545, 520, 529, 460, 554] [3016]
2. Doctor Who (2005 to present) [585, 592, 652, 700, 322, 625, 660, 710, 586, 703, 574] [6709]
3. Fleabag [205]
4. Sherlock [1150]
5. Life on Mars [960]
101. Modern Drama [15232 - 253h, 52m]
1. Breaking Bad [3100]
2. Deadwood [1980]
3. The West Wing [6552]
4. The Wire [3600]
102. Modern Documentary [6853 - 114h, 13m]
1. The Blue Planet [400]
2. Chef's Table [200]
3. Cosmos (2014) [546]
4. Frozen Planet [420]
5. Human Planet [400]
6. Long Way Round [420]
7. Making a Murderer [550]
8. Modern Marvels (Seasons 1-5) [2565]
9. Only the Dead [77]
10. Planet Earth [660]
11. Planet Earth II [360]
12. When the Leeves Broke [255]
103. Modern Sci-Fi [12670 - 211h, 10m]
1. Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009) [3300]
2. Firefly [616]
3. Orphan Black [1978]
4. Stargate SG-1 (First 7 Seasons) [6776]
104. Modern Sitcoms [11148 - 185h, 48m]
1. Arrested Development [1632]
2. Friends (Seasons 1-7, 10) [4956]
3. The Office - UK [420]
4. Seinfeld [4140]
105. Super Natural TV [13338 - 222h, 18m]
1. Lost [5124]
2. The Twilight Zone (1959) [4100]
3. The X-Files (First 6 Seasons) [6255] 

Reading Others Lists

In doing preparation for my own Bucket List, I first started by looking to see what others have done. This has helped with a few things that I think has been really beneficial. But one thing that I think is fairly true that you need to keep in mind, is that the list really NEEDS to be true for you. So my discoveries, while true for me, may not speak the same to others.

Two of my biggest influences are lifelisted.com and http://www.johngoddard.info/life_list.htm. Lifelisted is done by a guy, who like me, was depressed and decided to make drastic changes to his life and made a list of about 155 things to do before a given date (that date was earlier in 2017, and yes, he finished them all. John Goddard is essentially the grandfather of bucket lists. He had 127 items, most of which he completed before he died.

One of the first things that I really noticed when I looked at Lifelisted, which I didn't particularly like, was how he doubled up on his goals. Now, he doesn't entirely number his goals and I haven't gone through on how many he has on his life list page, but at least how he has it presented, he has a good number of goals which fulfill 3+ goals at once. This gives him the appearance of doing more than he actually is really doing. The best example I can give of this is that he has separate goals for seeing the Great Pyramids, Going to Cairo, and Going to Africa, this also plays into yet another goal of going to every continent in the world. Now I think most of these are worth doing (not sure if I'd go to Cairo for any other reason than the Pyramids, but I digress)... But given his around 155 items, he can cross off 3 (or 2%) with one trip. He has more than one item like this as well, which makes me think his life list is actually around 80 items, still nothing to scoff about, but it certainly got beefed up for no reason. I will say, that given one of my overall goals with my own bucket list is to fulfill a sense of accomplishment, having several items knocked off by doing a couple of tasks would really feel good when I do it, but ultimately I want to feel good for each individual item on its own. And the way my brain works, I think I'd see the lie and that'd bother me.

Contrast this with John Goddard's list... Goddard doesn't have any blanket "visit every continent" type goal, though I'm sure he did. Instead, he chose very specific things to do on the continent and there is little to no overlap at all. When he checked off an item, you know it meant something. This lead me to a concept of... yes it's great to visit all 50 states, but simply visiting isn't enough. I need to do something in all 50 states. So I've come up with a concept of meta goals. These aren't actually goals on my Bucket List at all, but rather goals that I am creating for myself to create for the actual bucket list so that  when all is said and done, I will have done things like visited all 50 states, and all 7 continents. But the things I did to do this meant something too, and it wasn't just, well I had a plane layover in Atlanta so I guess I can check Georgia off my list.

Another thing that I really liked about Goddard's list was grouping of smaller things to make a bigger thing that meant more. A good example is this: "Become familiar with the compositions of Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Ibert, Mendelssohn, Lalo, Liszt, Rimski-Korsakov, Respighi, Rachmaninoff, Paganini, Stravinsky, Toch, Tschaikosvsky, Verdi." In doing this, John Goddard is essentially comparing one thing to another. He's saying, becoming familiar with Bach isn't all that challenging compared to exploring the Nile River. But when he groups up a dozen such composers, all of a sudden that one goal, is kind of a big deal. My personal Bucket List is going to be fairly heavy on books, movies, TV Shows, and video games, and there is truth in the idea that each one of these individually, just isn't as much of an accomplishment as a "bigger" goal. And so I think I like Goddard's idea of grouping to increase the accomplishment earned.

On the other side, Goddard did something very wrong with the "become familiar" item... it was very general. In fact, he even made a note that he doesn't need to know every work in each. Which means accomplishing that goal is pretty subjective. If he feels he's done enough, he can check the box, even if all he did was listen to like 2 of each composer's works. It just doesn't feel right. I believe in being specific with your goals, which lifelisted does a much better job with.

Goddard also does something else wrong. He thought too big with a couple of his items... most notably "visit the moon." Maybe it was made during the mid-60's when there was a lot of optimism about the future of space exploration, but it was something that he had absolutely no control over. Even now, it is only beginning to be do-able to visit space let alone the moon, which we've almost completely given up on. I could see space being on someone's list, but even that feels more than slightly out of my control (currently, I'd have to be ultra rich or famous, neither of which I am). This leads to a lesson of keeping your lists grounded in reality. You want to think BIG, but not too big. In particular, I want to try to not create items that are completely out of my control. Another example I could think of is to see X animal in the wild.... what if X becomes extinct? Or if I created an item that says something like.... "See the Mona Lisa in The Louvre." What's to say it will always be in the Louvre. Now I could edit or delete an item if it ever needed to be (or retired?), but that would be very disheartening. I'd rather have big goals that are within the realm of possibility.

So these are the major takeaways that I have gotten from reviewing other's lists.... Make items that are big accomplishments, but still attainable. If you have a goal you want, but think it might not make for a great accomplishment, consider grouping that goal. Gear away from general goals, and try to make specific bucket items that you can tick off. And the other thing about reading other's lists is that you kind of get a good starting idea of what you want to do with yours.

A New Journey Begins

I am depressed.

What a way to start a blog right?'

I am not going to get into the why I am depressed, but I have been severely depressed for a little more than a year and a half now, and I have looked into a lot of ways to try to gear myself out of it with no avail. I initially tried non-prescription serotonin boosters, and then started different anti-depressants. I have tried therapy. I have tried "thinking happy thoughts," or coming up with a daily list of good things that I like about myself or good things that happened to me that day. Nothing really works, my brain unfortunately recognizes the lies of the therapy and happy thoughts, and anti-depressants seem to make matters worse.

A few weeks ago, I started to peruse some TED talks and bumped into a few that were talking about things in different ways and how they helped the person through difficult times of their lives. And the common theme in them, I felt, was this base base idea... of do something with your life!

Ok, first of all this seems pretty cliche. I cannot move forward without admitting that to myself, and anyone that may be reading along.  Sure, do something with your life. We've been told that by parents, and teachers, and pastors, and pretty much anyone from a very young age. But when you are young, and hell even now, you take that concept and take it to mean what you do for a living, and that isn't what I mean here.

What I mean is do important things, things that you aren't going to get paid to do, that you aren't necessarily forced to do, things that you want to do and give you a sense of accomplishment with your life, regardless of monetary or outside forces. Do something(s) that make  YOU feel accomplished.

When you are dead, and look back at your life. What is it that you are going to look back and be proud of that you did? Invariably this will have nothing to do with your work or that you made a lasagna when you get home from work. Although person depending, maybe it will.

And so, I return to this base idea of a Bucket List.

BucketGeek.com was originally an idea I had several years ago about  completing the best 1000+ things in various categories. I had lists of 1000+ movies, tv shows, music, books, video games, places to travel... all things I wanted to complete. And to some degree I was successful with these lists, but invariably they were everything that was wrong with the general building of Bucket Lists.

First of all, some goals were too general, some goals were too easy to feel any sort of accomplishment, but more erroneous than any, the basic concept was inevitably not possible. The amount of hours needed just to invest in reading 1000 books is HUGE. That ultimate goal to complete that list would have been a great accomplishment! But each individual book was not much of one. And ultimately the idea failed because I was never going to really see the accomplishment, all I was really going to do was feel bad about not doing it.

And so I am here to re-build my bucket list to be not only have more attainable and realistic goals, but also goals that feel like I actually accomplished something. And that I actually DID something.

I am only a few weeks into this journey so far. And so far, I have accomplished none of my goals. But just the ideas that I am coming up with to attain this Bucket List concept... is already making me feel better with life. I am excited about life and trying to tackle these goals and hopefully, once I start attaining the goals I set forth with.. I will feel even better.... maybe, even happy.