The End

So, we made it to February 24th. It's been fun, but we're going to stop now. We haven't got the time or energy to put loads of effort into finding crazy things to do, and we thought we'd quit now, rather than watching the blog gradually tail off into nothingness. Our final viewing figures: 1,111 views from 11 different countries. Anyway, we hope you've enjoyed it. Good morning, and if we don't see you again, good afternoon, good evening, and...
Goodbye.

February 24th: National Tortilla Chip Day

Today is tortilla chip day - not to be confused with corn chip day, which was near the end of January. As luck would have it, we happened to have an entire bag of Chilli Doritos on top of our refrigerator. Which is a shame, really, 'cause I much prefer the cheesy ones. Or even the "Cool Original" ones.
Still, y'know what they say. A tortilla chip is a tortilla chip. Especially on tortilla chip day.
Having said that, I went to put the Doritos back, and found that we had a bag of Cool Original as well. Which was pretty awesome. We also had a posher bag of "Sea Salt and Chardonnay Wine Vinegar Crisps", which I didn't eat any of, naturally. It's amusing, though - the way adding "Sea" makes it sound so much better. At the end of the day, it's just plain old sodium chloride... (NaCl, Giant Ionic Lattice, positive and negative ions held together in a fixed repeating pattern by electrostatic attraction, poor conductor of electricity when solid, conducts when aqueous, not malleable). Tastes nice, though.

February 23rd: International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day

Soo I(Laura) tried to eat a dog biscuit. It wasn't so bad at first but then... *shutters* I can still taste it... here it is.

22nd February: Be Humble Day

Be Humble. It’s a tricky thing to do – if you think you’ve managed it, then perhaps you’re being too arrogant about your humility. I can’t claim to be the humblest person ever, though I try to avoid boasting about my huge array of incredible talents, such as my awesome unicycling ability, my “formidable maths skills”, my amazing memory, the prodigious strength that allows me to support the weight of 3 people whilst hanging upside down… I’m going to stop there.

Joking aside, the past few weeks have actually been a very humbling experience. As I try to work my way back into the normal routine of school, and life in general, I’ve had to admit that I can’t cope with taking it all on at once – that I do need to take things slowly. For someone who’s spent years throwing himself into everything possible, and taking pride in the fact that he can successfully manage a significant amount more than many of his peers, this is quite difficult. And I’m doing it again today – recognizing that throwing myself back into school might not be the best idea… being humble about my ability to cope with everything that’s going on. 
On another note, it's Ash Wednesday - the start of Lent. Probably a good day to be humble. I considered the idea of joining everyone else in giving up Facebook for Lent, but decided against it. However, I am going to try and read the whole of the New Testament during Lent - something that may well require me to cut back on time spent on Facebook.
I’ll leave you with this rather fitting Bible verse, though it's not from the New Testament:

“He has shown you, O man, what is good.

And what does the LORD require of you?

To act justly, to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with your God."

Card Day!

Well hi-diddely-hi there!

It's Card Day! I know. Card Day. Joe gets Chocolate Mint Day (or is that mint chocolate?) Laura gets Hoodie-Hoo Day. And I get Card Day.

Yano...those boring things that come with the presents you get at birthdays and Christmas. In my house when it's been someone's birthday the  cards go on the mantelpiece, but then they stay up there until it's the next person's birthday. Currently I think we have some lovely cards from my sister's birthday. Which was back in October. OCTOBER.

Cards are very underrated. Good things come in small packages, and hot darn, cards don't disappoint. I know that huge present looks amazing, and you want to eat it and all. But check that card. It might have some money in it...

February 20th: Hoodie Hoo Day

So on Hoodie Hoo Day you're supposed to go outside at noon, wave your hands in the air and yell "HOODIE HOO!" to make spring come and winter go away. Sooo I read this last night and was super excited, of course, because I love spring! And I will do anything to get winter out of here... I mean, I like winter and everything but by February in Wisconsin when there's still snow on the ground, you're just completely sick of it.

So anyway I set my phone alarm to go off at noon today and I don't know what happened. But I completely forgot and now I'm crushed... But in the middle of Algebra I finally remembered and yelled HOODIE HOO! and waved my hands in the air. You'd think this would draw attention to me or something, but I do this kind of thing all the time that it's not even noticeable anymore.

Anyways, my one job for the day and I failed :( Now you know who to blame if spring doesn't come fast enough.

February 19th: National Chocolate Mint Day.

I’m guessing this must be an American thing – I would call it mint chocolate. And I’m fairly sure that the majority of Britain would agree with me (correct me if I’m wrong). And, when you think about it, mint chocolate is actually far more logical. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate… clearly mint chocolate.

Anyway, I am currently eating a bar of Aero. I don’t particularly want a bar of Aero – having just had a weekend of circus, my muscles are dying, and I would have much preferred going to sleep than walking down to the shops to buy an Aero bar. But I’m eating one anyway. Never been a huge fan of Aero, really. As mint chocolate goes – it’s not the best. After Eights would have been nice, but they cost too much to be worth buying for no great reason. Anyone ever played the after eight game? I win at that.

Thankfully, Aero does confirm my suspicions – the product description very clearly says “mint chocolate”. And I’m going to leave the blog there.

February 18th: Battery Day

At first, seeing this day I thought really?? A day for batteries?? But I guess I really take batteries for granted. Just like those Duracell commercials always say! ;) Not only things like walk-e-talkies and TV remotes use batteries. Hospitals use types of batteries, too. Cars have batteries, and the army uses batteries. I guess our society really depends on them a lot more than I thought they would.

ASLO fun fact! Energizer isn't the only battery company with a bunny as their mascot. Duracell has a bunny too, apparently. I say the Energizer bunny is better. The Duracell one is just creepy....

What do bunnies have to do with batteries anyway? I thought they were just cute, now they're some sales pitch? Sigh... what is wrong with the world?

Joe thinks the Duracell bunny is the best, having never seen the Energizer one in his life. Also, rechargeable batteries win.

February 17th: Champion Crab Races Day

It was sort of hard to celebrate today because, unfortunately, I'm all out of racing crabs. So instead I looked it up. There was a World Championship Crab Race today in California where crabs raced on a four foot raceway. I guess they eat a ton of crab at these things too. Don't you think that's sort of barbaric? To race them and have this huge celebration for the winner.... and then eat it's family?? I don't know. It sounds pretty heartless if you ask me. Have some respect!

I think it's pretty sad that all people could think of for February 17th is racing crabs. I mean, someone had to have thought of all these holidays, right? Were they just sitting around thinking, "Hm... February 17th... We already have International Polar Bear Day, what else is there? How about crab racing!" I mean, how random can you get?? But I guess some people really care about racing crabs. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against crab racing. Nothing sounds more thrilling than watching a crustacean shuffling down a track. I'm going to have to see that sometime.

February 16th: Do a Grouch a Favor

I was super excited for this day because it's pretty much my goal in life to cheer up grumpy people. Yeah. Pretty sweet. But, unfortunately, I have failed my mission. For today, anyway.

So... I pretty much just ran around asking people if they were grouchy. No one was grouchy. Except one of my friends was grouchy at the end of the day. I tried to tell her a story about a clam named George who had no friends. It didn't cheer her up :/

BUT, you could say a did a favor for a grouch today. I was being a big grouchy earlier today when I realized I have a huge biology project due Monday and I won't be home most of the weekend to work on it. So I guess I did myself a favor by not doing everything I was supposed to do (like writing this for example) and looking at funny pictures online instead. Eventually, I did have to do everything though. In like 5 minutes. But hey, I did my grouchy self a favor. So I guess...

mission accomplished.

February 15th: National Gumdrop Day

Well, today being National Gumdrop day, I rode down to the high street after circus, and bought some gumdrops. I am now eating them. There isn't much more to say on the subject, except that they're quite nice. However, for the sake of giving all you people something to read, I will write briefly about the fact that I rode down to the shop on my Muni. That being a mountain unicycle, obviously.

Now, the muni is undoubtedly the worst unicycle I own. I got it second hand of e-bay a few years ago, and compared to the quality of my other 4 unicycles, it really is pretty old, and rubbish. It doesn't have the control of the freestyle, or the speed of the 36". It's not as impressive as the giraffe, I can't do any tricks on it, and, strangely, it's not that good off road. Despite that, however, I really like riding it. It's quite handy when you just want to get somewhere in Coventry - over short distances, it's much less hassle than the road unicycle. And, in addition to that, there's just something really fun about riding it. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's just more exciting than any of the others, even the giraffe. It's something about the speed, combined with the fact that on the muni, more than on any other unicycle, I can be unbalanced while riding. There's a different style of turning - you lean into the corners far more, and do an awesome twist out of them, bringing the uni up underneath you. You ride over the bumps, ignoring the fact that they're there, and let the tyre cope with them. I'd say that being on the muni reminds me of why I first got on a unicycle, but that would be a complete lie. It doesn't. But I cannot deny that it is... cool.

February 14th: Ferris Wheel Day and Heart to Heart Day

Apparently there's a family story about my aunt and a ferris wheel! :O

When my aunt was in high school, she called in sick to work so she could go to a fair with her cousins. (she has like five billion...) They got on this double ferris wheel, which I guess is this ferris wheel on top of a ferris wheel. It's sort of hard to explain, but I guess they're both turning seperately but also together in one circle. I don't know. Anyway, when my aunt and her cousins were at the top of the ferris wheel, it got stuck. What else? The fire department had to come and everyone had to climb down a ladder, even my aunt and her cousins at the very top. So, of course, my aunt got her picture in the newspaper and her boss saw it. Oh, and he fired her. Probably the most predictable movie cliche out there, and it actually happened to my aunt. Haha, happy Ferris Wheel Day :)

February 13th: Get A Different Name Day and Dream Your Sweet Day

I love this day. First of all, I've always wanted a different name. Laura is just too... boring. Unless you're Laura Ingalls Wilder, then you're beast. So I'm going to list all the different names I've "had" or ever been called.

• Sally and Sam- When I was little I always wanted one of these to be my names. Don't ask me why, out of all the names I could think of I chose Sally. Ugh. Sam isn't bad though.
• Andrew Christian and Emily- I as almost named one of these. Obviously Andrew Christian would've been if I were a boy. :P
• Kat- Nickname one of my best friends gave me because my middle name is Katherine. And it's cute :)
• Bessy- Nickname someone gave me because of my last name, not because I'm a cow.
• Ellbie- Nickname some friends gave me because my initials are LB
• Axel- For some reason, someone thought my name was Axel and started calling me that. I mean Axel, Laura same thing, right?
• Laurel, Taylor and Molly- For some reason, I have 3 different nicknames in my spanish class, and none of them are Spanish.

Not to mention all the nicknames my family gave me. Yeah. I have a lot. But I decided, since I can only pick one new name today, it should be Banquo. I auditioned for Macbeth at my school today and I read the part of Banquo.
Joe doesn't really want a new name. He's quite happy with the one he has. However, he did quite enjoy spending several weeks being referred to as "The Merlin", so he might have that as a new name if he wanted one. Or just go back to being called "Joseph". Also, it would be quite interesting to have a really weird second name, like our good friend Patrick Von Goldman, or, for that matter, Hrolf Refreshingbeveragesniffer. On another note, somebody decided that his sister's surname began with a B, and so she's now going to have to find someone to get married to..."
The second holiday today is Dream Your Sweet Day. Since it's the day before Valentine's Day, today you're supposed to dream of your sweetheart. Tomorrow, my sweetheart is a stuffed animal my friend promised me. I'm going to dream about it all night now. <3

February 12th: National Plum Pudding Day

Again, not the best time to have this day. The only time that plum puddings make an appearance in our house is at Christmas, and they're generally wasted then, as neither Esther nor I like them. So, unsurprisingly, I didn't eat any plum pudding yesterday. Instead, I decided to use the day as an excuse to focus on something that springs to mind somewhat more readily when I hear the words “plum pudding”. Yep, that’s right. The plum pudding model of the atom, proposed by J.J.Thompson in 1904, then disproved by the famous Rutherford scattering experiment in 1909. Admittedly, it was wrong, and not the most exciting scientific theory ever, but it did lead to Bohr’s quantum model of the atom, which was a fairly important step in the development of quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics, by the way, is awesome. It seems to be a general law that Chemistry teachers aren’t allowed to understand it, but when you find either a physics teacher or a book that really know what they’re talking about…

And I’m getting off topic. I hope Jonnie and/or Laura has actually eaten some plum pudding now, but hey. Physics is way cooler.

February 11th: White Tee-Shirt Day and Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day

Really hoping that my nice font is working this time – it seemed to dislike kite flying day. Anyway, today being White T-shirt Day, I naturally decided to celebrate it by not wearing a white t-shirt. Which may be strange, but these days are all about doing something unusual, and I wear white t-shirts too often. Almost every circus performance I do, for example, seems to involve wearing white. They’re quite good to wear under shirts in the winter, too. Fun fact: the T-shirt evolved from underwear in the 19^th Century (1800s). Okay, so that’s not actually that fun, but hey. I have 5 white t-shirts.

Of course, we can’t go forgetting that today is also Don’t Cry Over Spilt Milk Day. Now, I’m sure that this is meant to be a metaphor, and I’m meant to do something deep and meaningful today, and that I’m meant to take this phrase as a central guideline to my entire life. But there’s no fun in that. So, instead, I spilt some milk. And didn’t cry over it. (It was a proper spill, by the way. None of this pouring a bit of milk onto the side. There was a bottle of milk, without a lid on, and I knocked it over. The milk was spilled. And I didn’t cry.)

Interestingly, while I was standing there, looking at the puddle of milk, and struggling to hold back the tears, a thought occurred to me. The phrase is always “don’t cry over spilt milk.” Does that mean you can cry under it? Or beside it? And are you allowed to cry over spilt water? Spilt apple juice? Spilt maple syrup? Spilt blood?

(Don’t go spilling blood. That would be bad).

Having had all these interesting thoughts, and successfully avoided crying, I went to get a cloth. I might go to sleep in a white T-shirt. Just for the sake of it. But I'll leave you with an important question: is it spilt, or spilled?

February 10th: Umbrella Day

I love umbrellas. They're so cute. Unless Mary Poppins is flying through the air with one, looking like she's about to murder children. I hate Mary Poppins. Anyway... what was I talking about? Oh. Okay so when I was like 6 my Aunt gave me a dalmatian umbrella with matching rain boots. I was always excited when I got the chance to use them, but it wasn't that often. I should've brought them to England when I came last year.

So I almost brought my puppy dog umbrella to school, but it was too big. So I brought one I found in our closet, which of course was broken. All the umbrellas my family has ever owned have broken. All of them. I planned on bringing it from class to class and opening it up and walking down the halls with it, but I decided that was probably not a good idea. The hallways are already packed and I don't think people would be very happy to have an umbrella shoved in their face. Not to mention the bad luck I'd have for opening it indoors. So I just put it in my locker and carried it around OUTSIDE of school.

Joe's family seems to have the same problem with umbrellas. Dad always has a good one, but the others are always broken. And Dad's one breaks if anyone else uses it. We found an umbrella at the bus stop a few years ago, and we kept it for a while. I can't remember what happened to it, but I think it might have broken too. Anyway, broken umbrellas are the reason that coats exist, and coats are cool. So it's not all bad news.

February 9th: Toothache Day

Why is there a toothache day? Is it like a remembrance of past toothaches or is it just a marketing tool for stuff like Orajel? Whatever the reason, I decided I would find a way to celebrate it.

At first I planned on pretending to have a toothache all day, but then I decided that was just weird and not even funny. "Hah! Just kidding. I don't really have a toothache. I'm just celebrating Toothache Day!" But it wouldn't have been a big deal. Everyone at my school already knows I'm a freak. :)

So I finally decided I would only eat soft foods today (as a person with a toothache would) like applesauce, yogurt and soup. I was doing pretty well until someone offered my a Twix and I crumbled. It sort of went downhill from there... But for my actual meals I only ate soft foods. It was actually pretty gross. I've decided I like solid food.

February 8th: Kite Flying Day

I now dislike whoever decided on this list of days. Why, oh why, did they decide to put Kite Flying Day at the beginning of February?! Granted, flying kites is fun. Especially in the summer, where it’s nice and sunny and warm. However, when it’s 0°C, and your fingers freeze off while you try to untangle the string, it’s not so great.
I rode up to the common, spent twenty minutes getting the strings sorted out, and then launched the kite. The strong winds pulled it straight up into the sky, and it soared through the crisp winter air, doing loops and spirals at the slightest pull from my expert hands… or not. There was no wind. BBC told me there was 8mph – force 3, I think. I would have called it a force 1, at most. After running backwards across almost the entire common, I still hadn’t succeeded in keeping it in the air for more than 10 seconds. Generally, it would lift off the ground, crumple, and come back down.
Normally, I’m not bad at kite flying. Dad’s the expert, but I can still do the basic loops, twists and figures of 8 well enough. No such luck today. Even when the wind perked up a bit a the end, there still wasn’t enough to do anything more than basic flying.
Not the most successful kite flying day ever. However, it did spark off a little idea. Basically, there’s a trick on the unicycle called gliding, where you take your feet off the pedals, and let your momentum carry you along, using one foot on the wheel to control your speed. It’s also possible to do this while being pulled along, by another unicyclist, or occasionally a car. So I figured, with a strong enough wind… kite pull gliding? Well, when it’s warmed up a bit…

Charles Dickens Day

Well Sirree, it's Charles Dickens day and it seems rather appropriate that we should celebrate it this year - if old Charlie were alive today, he'd be 200!

Charles Dickens is one of the most celebrated British writers, he write many books and my family owns most of them! They are all quite good, if a little long. His most famous is A Christmas Carol, which has even been made into a muppet version (with a stellar performance from Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit).

As part of Charles Dickens day, I decided to try and fit as many Charles Dickens quotes as I could throughout the day.

'Please sir, can I have some more, sir?'
My mother wasn't pleased at being called sir, but I had to keep in character.

"There's nothing better than a friend, unless it's a friend with chocolate."
Well, that or marshmallows. Or pretty much any food, I'm not fussed.

"God bless us, every one!"

What a cutie patootie.


And I leave you all with a wonderful quote;

“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.”

True dat

Also, Laura was thrilled when her English class sang Happy Birthday to Charles Dickens, even though most in that class don't like him because he was a little dickens.(heh... see what I did there??)

February 6th: Lame Duck Day

Hey guys - Laura here. I don't really understand the meaning of this metaphor, but I do have a story about a lame duck!

When my sister was 8, she went fishing with my family at a nearby pond. She saw a duck "flailing about" in the water, unable to move. Looking at the duck, it seemed she was tangled in fishing line. My sister waded into the water and untangled the duck from the line. "She saved the duck and saved the day" as my dad says. Moral of the story is, when  you see a lame duck, free it from the fishing line. I don't know what hidden meaning this could have, but give this as advice and you'll always sound smart.

Sorry if this blog is "lame" but I need to "duck" into bed. Goodnight!

February 5th: Disaster Day

Strangely enough, despite all the things that could potentially have gone wrong, there weren't any major disasters today. England survived the Cricket, which is less of a disaster than most people would have predicted yesterday. There weren't any Earthquakes, or Tornadoes. And the snow duck that we made definitely wasn't a disaster. Jonnie named it Potato, for some reason.

On another note, there were a few minor errors. Joe was doing a crazy trapeze routine last night, and despite being exhausted, his attempts to go to sleep, both last night, and well into this morning, were complete disasters. Following on from that, the lack of sleep meant that he completely failed to do any Chemistry homework. Also, most of the snow melted, which is just rubbish. It means that there definitely won't be a snow day tomorrow, which could be seen as a disaster by some... especially since we have Statistics.

I'm sure Laura has some incredibly disastrous events to tell you about, but - sadly - all our attempts to find out about these have met with disaster. I'm sure she'll add some stuff later. Meanwhile, feel free to watch Joe's trapeze routine... if my attempt to post the link is a disaster, I apologise.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=2832789693936


Laura finds it a complete disaster that she couldn't have lived in the 1960s. What's so great about the 1960s? Um, hello! The Sandlot! If you haven't seen The Sandlot, that is completely disasterous and you must watch it now. Also, it's a disaster that the Packers aren't playing in the Superbowl, and Laura still feels obligated to watch it.(though she probably won't...) Sigh. What is this world coming to?

February 4th: Create a Vacuum Day

Create a Vacuum day. Before I start writing anything, I’d just like to point out that this day is ridiculously unfair. For a start, it’s impossible to create a vacuum without access to high tech laboratory equipment. And even if I did have said equipment, it’s entirely conceivable that I still wouldn’t be able to fulfil the aims of this day, as there is strong scientific evidence that, due to the idea of pair production, it is completely impossible to create a true vacuum. (If you’re interested, go and find the programme “Nothing”, by Jim Al-Khalili. It’s very good).

So, I haven’t done much vacuum making. I did go around sucking all the air out of a couple of bottles with the weird pump thing that you use to pressurise bottles of wine, but this doesn’t really create a vacuum. If you try it on a plastic bottle, the bottle crumples. If you try it on a wine bottle, it makes the air surrounding the bottle smell of wine. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – I’ve always thought wine smells slightly better than it tastes… Interestingly, there’s a device that does exactly the opposite of the pump thing that I failed to find a name for a few lines above. It puts air into bottles – very useful for pressurising bottles of fizzy drinks, so they don’t lose their fizz. We don’t have one, sadly, but they are pretty cool.

In other news, England got thrashed in the cricket, and I got a dent in my leg from a circus performance. Thank you, and goodnight. Try not to get snowed in. 

February 3rd: Cordova Ice Worm Day

I found out what a cordova ice worm is!! Okay. Story time.

Sooo in 1898 this guy named EJ White was working as a journalist in Alaska. He got a job writing for the Klondike Nugget on the condition that he increased sales. After this huge snow storm hit, White wrote about this new creature called the ice worm. What a sneaky fellow. Everyone freaked out so he kept writing about it blah blah blah. You can find the whole official legend here: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/tall-tales/alaska.html

So now, every year in Cordova they celebrate Cordova Ice Worm Day with a winter carnival. No joke. They elect ice worm king and queen, too. It is now my life dream to be elected Cordova Ice Worm Queen just because it'd be awesome to brag about.

February 2nd: Purification Day

Soo I've been trying to think of a way to celebrate today, but I really don't know. So I'm just going to exaggerate everything I did so it sounds like I celebrated.

I "purified" my homework folder.

I "purified" my room... sort of.

I "purified" my glasses.

I "purified" my teeth.

I "purified" my facebook notifications.

I "purified" my wallet...

I "purified" my hair.

But it's not cheating because the official definition of purification is "the act of cleaning by getting rid of impurities" So... it counts, right?

There's a movie called "The Purifiers". I hadn't heard of it until today when I was just looking up "purification" on google as a desperate attempt to find something worth writing about. Anyway, I watched the trailer and I pretty much only wanna see it because Dominic Monaghan is in it <3 If you don't know who that is, slap yourself in the face. Or just look him up online, either way. He played Merry in Lord of the Rings.

WOOHOO! A long enough blog post! Now I just have to figure out how to write one for tomorrow... What's a cordova ice worm??

February 1st: Serpent Day

February 1^st, eh? Wow. Somehow, incredibly, unbelievably, inconceivably, in defiance of all expectations, we have managed a month of blogging. And it’s been pretty fun. 710 views last month – thanks to everybody who kept up with the blog during January.

Anyway. Tis Serpent Day. And yes, that rhymed. I am awesome. Now, you may think that there’s not much to do on Serpent Day, besides casual slithering, unless you happen to have a pet snake… but you’d be wrong. For a start, you can experiment with different kinds of slithering…

• Fake slithering. I don’t know why people do this, but it seems to be a generally held belief that being a snake involves lying on your stomach and dragging yourself forward with your arms. What’s with that? Since when did snakes have arms? Still, if you’re not man enough to try a bit of proper slithering, then maybe this is the one for you.
• Side to side. This one is a bit more sensible – lie on your stomach, and slide one side of your body forwards, then the other. Apologies for the bad explanation – you might see what I mean if you get down and give it a go. This one is slow, but effective.
• Up and down. This may be more caterpillar than snake, but I’m fairly sure that they move by scrunching up their body, then extending it from the tail forwards. This is somewhat harder for humans to do, but still possible. It’s slightly faster than side to side, but less comfortable.

I also made a balloon serpent. For those of you who don’t know, I do quite a bit of balloon modelling. Occasionally, I get asked for a snake, so I made up a model a while ago. I don’t particularly like it, but it looks quite cool if you can find something to coil it round. The one I made is light blue, called Jerry, and is currently coiled around the chin-up bar in my bedroom doorway. I might upload a picture at some point.

Hhhaasssssssssssssaaaasssssssssssshhhe.

January 31st: National Popcorn Day and Child Labor Day

Another popcorn day!! Omnomnom. Also Child Labor Day. My parents thought it was sooo clever to make me do the dishes on Child Labor Day. Ugh... but child labor is very real. Here are some facts about Child Labor:

• One in six children 5 to 14 years old — about 16 percent of all children in this age group — is involved in child labor in developing countries.

• In the least developed countries, 30 percent of all children are engaged in child labor.Worldwide, 126 million children work in hazardous conditions, often enduring beatings, humiliation and sexual violence by their employers.

• An estimated 1.2 million children — both boys and girls — are trafficked each year into exploitative work in agriculture, mining, factories, armed conflict or commercial sex work.

• The highest proportion of child laborers is in sub-Saharan Africa, where 26 percent of children (49 million) are involved in work.

Please help stop child labor. You can sign a petition online telling stores like Aeropostale, Forever 21, Toys R Us, and Urban Outfitters to stop the abuse.

Escape Day

IT'S ESCAPE DAY!

Well, I do kind of like days like this because it means I get to pretty much make up what I do! But unfortunately it also means that sometimes I just cannae think of anything to do (it happens when you get old - I'm nearly 17 now!)

So anyway, Escape Day is all about escaping from the things that annoy or irritate you. For instance it really p***** me off when people eat loudly. Like really. It makes me want to scream and cry. But on Escape Day you just have to forget about it and escape it! And just walk out the room and eat somewhere else or just put in some earplugs or something. And then tomorrow you can go back to being a moody poo (although that's not really the point, maybe you should learn from escape day!)

So what is it that really irritates you? Your [little//big//twin] [brother//sister//both] (delete as applicable)? Or just that guy on the bus with his music too loud?

Joe seconds this. Escaping is very good, sometimes. And he spent a couple of hours today escaping from Merlin rehearsals, so that's all well and smashing.

Laura thirds this. Although the only thing she wants to escape from is school(which isn't going to happen...), she did start a new class today and feels super cool and like she's escaping some zombie apocalypse or bombing every time she goes up the little creepy stairwell to her classroom. She is going to start playing dramatic music on her iPod as she goes to class now.

January 29th: National Corn Chip Day

I honestly have no idea if you have corn chips in England. I don't know if I'm being stupid but I legitimately have no idea. I know you call big french fries chips, and American potato chips crisps, but do you even call a corn chip a corn chip? According to Wikipedia which, as we know, is always right, the most common corn chip in America is the Frito. I think the Frito explains America completely. We've pretty much taken a Mexican food(tostados), and totally slaughtered it by making it as fattening as possible. Also, the original commercial from the sixties has a super stereotypical Mexican as their mascot. Pretty much sums up 1960s America for you: fat and racist.

January 28th: National Kazoo Day, Clash Day, Rattle Snake Round-Up Day

There is a lot more to kazoos than I thought... I mean, there's a whole day devoted to them! I even looked up kazoo songs on Youtube and there are some hard core kazooers out there. In case you don't know how to play a kazoo(for some reason...), don't worry! There are training videos you can watch on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=CLXmSlcvIR8

So, for clash day... this picture explains all. My friend owns too many stripes...

As for Rattlesnake Round-up day, I guess people get into it a lot more than I thought... so if you're one of those people, why not send an e-card! Yep. There are Rattlesnake Round-up e-cards. I'm totally sending one.

January 27th: Punch the Clock Day

Why would anyone want to punch a clock?

Well, that's an interesting question. You're probably thinking, 'can't I just punch a clock any day of the year?'
But the thing is, if we punched clocks every day, there'd be no clocks in the world! In fact, no-one would be able to tell the time at all because people would just be kicking the clocks. And I'm sure people would have invented novel ways of destroying those time-telling tickers.

You could have...clock-hitting, clock-tennis, clockboxing, clock polo, clock fights or even clock throwing contests. The possibilities are, as they say, ENDLESS. So get thinking...what would your clock sport be?

In other news, it's Thomas Crapper day. Yay! Thomas was a rather nifty guy who invented the flush toilet (and, you guessed it, also provided us with another expletive to use). So just thank your lucky stars that Mr Crapper was around to invent it.

I wonder about clock frisbee?

January 26th: Australia Day

Ello mates! Why am I talking like this? It's Australia Day, you silly dingo! :D This week I have semester exams so I didn't do anything cool and Australia-y today :/ BUT I did get a story abou Australia from my Dad's book! :) Here it is:

"When I was 10 years old I lived in Australia. I had a friend named Richard who apparently was allowed to smoke-or so he told me. There was something status-boosting about smoking cigarettes at age ten. I was jealous that Richard could smoke and I couldn't; I felt so young in comparison, so immature. So one cold winter morning I decided to try to recover my lost status by somehow making Richard believe I could smoke too. I didn't want to really smoke, though, so I rolled a small pile of pepper, which seemed to me very much like tobacco, into a tube of paper. I figured since it was cold enough to see my breath, Richard would assume I was smoking if I were puffing on my pepper-filled tube.
I had the status-boost all worked out in my head. We had a veranda on our second floor; I would stroll out as Richard padded up to our house on his way to school. He'd say, "Hey mate, come on down, let's go to school," and I would casually take a drag off my "cigarette" and say, "Just a sec, mate, whilst I finish up this cig." And I'd blow a mean cloud of smoke from the side of my mouth. Of course, my plan didn't work very well because I kept drawing in burning mouthfuls of pepper each time I took a drag"

I love my dad. :) It goes on talking about pride and a moral to the story and blah blah blah. But anyway, that's what Australian kids do. Smoke paper rolls full of pepper. I guess you learn something new every day.

January 25th: Definitely Not Opposite Day

So, it’s not opposite day. Which means that I’ve got practically nothing to write today. (There isn't an interesting debate as to whether or not it is actually not opposite day, and I’m going to have that debate now). Anyway, Jonnie and I were riding dragons to school this morning, when Jonnie didn’t point out that we should actually be going to the Library. (Apparently, the library isn’t the opposite of school). We didn’t then proceed to have a conversation in opposites, which was completely straightforward. We then failed to decide that, as the conversation wasn’t at all confusing, we would keep going for the rest of the day. After all, it wouldn’t cause any problems at all if we didn’t start talking in opposites when we weren’t in lessons…

Boring opinion: January 25^th is not the only day of the year when two positives make a negative. Try not to work that one out… It’s actually really easy writing this, because I’m always entirely certain as to the precise number of negatives to leave out of sentences. My brain is not in pain in any way, and I don’t have to go back to the Library soon, so I’m going to keep writing.

January 24th: Part II. Eskimo Pie Patent Day

So, I was ridiculously busy today, as always. So busy, in fact, that I haven’t had supper yet. Nevertheless, I was determined to eat an Eskimo pie today. So, at 20 past 9, on the way back from a 3 hour circus rehearsal, I set off to buy an ice cream. In the middle of winter. The first shop, sadly, wasn’t selling ice creams. The second was, and I had just enough money for a packet of 8 choc ices  (these, I think, are the nearest the Brits get to Eskimo Pies).

Now, I don’t normally eat choc ices at 20 past 9 on a winter’s night. But at the end of an exhausting rehearsal, they’re just the thing to give you a bit more energy. And by the time I’d walked the 300m home from the shop, I was already part way through my 3^rd Eskimo pie. Yep, they were that nice.

My Dad had one too. Even Neo tried a bit. I’ve now finished my 5^th, and I might just eat the last two when I’ve finished writing this. Sadly, this means I will have had about 3 times my recommended daily allowance of saturated fat. But hey. They were nice.
Also, just to avoid any confusion tomorrow, I think I should say this. January 25th, aka tomorrow, is opposite day. Regardless of what anything on or off this blog may or may not say to the contrary tomorrow, tomorrow is opposite day. (Naturally, if you're reading this on January 25th, it's not opposite day... see what I mean about confusion?)

January 24th: Part I

We'll update you as to what we've actually done today later on, but I thought I should write a quick entry now. Firstly, it's Eskimo Pie Patent day - an Eskimo Pie is, strangely, an ice cream coated in chocolate. Wierd? Maybe, but pretty nice.

Also, I've just notice that we've now had 500 views since January 1st, so I thought I should mention this. Huge thanks to everyone who's been following the blog, etc, especially whoever it is that's been viewing the blog from Germany. We hope you've all enjoyed some of it, and we apologise for the days we've been to busy to do much. Keep watching!

January 23rd: National Handwriting Day, National Pie Day and Measure Your Feet Day

Three holidays in one day today! But they're all fun so its cool :)

National Handwriting Day: Me and Joe both have horrible guy handwriting, which I've always wished I could change about myself. So today is a good chance to practice! It hasn't improved much, especially since we didn't write much in my school today, but I'll get there. Someday, I might have girl handwriting :)

National Pie Day: Um so this is probably the coolest day ever, just because it involves pie. So of course I made a chocolate cream pie. It's in the fridge right now - I haven't tried it yet - but it looks pretty good. Hopefully it'll turn out.

Measure Your Feet Day: As weird as this day is, Joe still found it necessary to go totally over the top and measure his feet in every way possible. I don't know. He's weird... I'm so proud :') Apparently, his left foot is approximately 260mm long, his right foot around 1cm longer, for some reason. Their combined volume is somewhere in the region of 2.385dm^3, and their total surface area below the ankle is roughly 7. I was boring and just measured them with a ruler. My feet are about 9.5 inches long... but I don't really know how to convert that into millimeters for you britsies.

Happy writing/eating/measuring!

January 22nd... Part II

Well, they’re out of the oven, and I’ve tried a couple. And actually, they’re not bad. Admittedly, they don’t taste much like brownies – if I didn’t know what they were, I’d just assume it was a rather sweet cake. Might not be a bad idea to add some chocolate chips next time…

The raspberry ones, however, are a different matter: they are amazing. I’ll let the others tell you what they’ve been doing. 3 days in 1 tomorrow…

January 22nd: National Answer Your Cat's Question Day and National Blonde Brownie Day

Anybody know what a Blonde Brownie is? No? Well, apparently they’re chocolate brownies, without the chocolate – made with light brown sugar instead. Now, we don’t know what your opinion on brownies is, but we think that just completely ruins the whole point of brownies.

            However, Joe did have an idea for something we could do instead. If the criterion for a blonde brownie is a brownie that isn’t dark brown, then why not make brownies with white chocolate? See where we’re going with this? White chocolate brownies, or brown sugar brownies – which sound nicer?

            For those of you who don’t know, Joe makes awesome brownies. If you haven’t tried them, tell him to make you some. Anyway, Joe being the resident brownie expert, he set out to make some white chocolate brownies. And he’s going to stop writing in 3^rd person now, because this is getting annoying.

            “I can’t claim to be a brilliant cook. But I’m not bad, and I’ve got a fairly good range of recipes. My point is that I’m at the level of cooking where occasionally I can try experimenting – straying from the recipe, changing a few ingredients, etc. Sometimes this works, sometimes it’s an epic failure. Anyway, I decided not to go and find a recipe for white chocolate brownies – I’d just adapt my normal brownie recipe instead.

                After half an hour of cooking, the final product is in the oven. Or rather, final products – I tried some raspberry and white chocolate brownies while I was at it. I can’t predict how they’re going to come out, but they certainly won’t be the same as normal brownies. And they will certainly be blonde. So, if tasting them doesn’t kill me, I will let you know how they’ve come out in about half an hour.”

            Joe would also like to add that he doesn’t have a cat. But if he did, the answer to its question would be 7.

January 21st: National Hugging Day

So, National Hugging day. Fun times! Aside from hugging a few people, I decided to use this day to find out just how common the idea of hugging is. I mean, everyone sort of assumes that it’s something fairly common. People hug each other all the time, right?

Or then again, maybe not. I was counting the number of hugs I saw today. And now, totalling them up as I write the blog, I’m shocked. I only saw 1 hug. The whole day. And the two people involved were going out, so maybe that doesn’t even count. And admittedly, I haven’t been interacting with people all day. But I’ve kept a pretty good eye out.

So, the lesson for today – hugging isn’t actually an incredibly common activity. Not in Coventry, at any rate. Which is a shame, ‘cause hugs are pretty awesome things. Fun fact: there are apparently 5 different types of hugs: Back to Front, Bear, Cheek, Side to Side, and Heart Centred. How many have you tried this year?

Jonnie used this day to make an attempt to hug Richard – the most hugaphobic person we know. He failed, naturally, but we did get an amusing video of Richard, so I guess that makes up for it. Anyway, that’s it from me. Go hug some people!

January 20th: Buttercrunch Day

Not a huge fan of Buttercrunch. It's too... buttercrunchy. But I found a recipe online that looks pretty good :) Check it out:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/ButtercrunchToffee.html
I didn't actually make it today, but I thought about buttercrunch toffee! Yay celebrating!

Joe hadn't even heard of Buttercrunch until today. But he thinks the recipe is kind of like fudge. Joe's pretty good at making fudge - he usually makes some at Christmas, and it's awesome. It was more like toffee this year, though - no idea what happened there.

Tomorrow is National Hugging Day. So excited.

January 19th: National Popcorn Day

I don't know about you, but I absolutely love popcorn!
Tip of the day: Don't eat popcorn for breakfast, especially if you're not planning on eating lunch :P
Microwave popcorn or kettle corn is always good but it's better with toppings :) My friends made up nutella popcorn and it's AMAZING! We melt some nutella in the microwave until it's more of a liquid and we pour it on some plain popcorn. And sometimes we let pretzel M&Ms melt in it. Mmmmmmm :) I like popcorn with parmesean cheese and cashews too.
Joe's also a big fan of popcorn. He's never tried Nutella popcorn - he doesn't like nutella, but he's usually got a bag of popping corn in the cupboard, and he'll make some when he's watching a film. It's quite cool making it in a saucepan, but it works slightly better in the microwave. Also, he thinks salted popcorn beats everything.

Apparently, there are two National Popcorn days in the month of January. One today and one on January 31st. Can you have two of the same national days? Not that I'm complaining, of course - I'm perfectly fine with this!
Happy popcorn-eating! :D

January 18th: Winnie the Pooh Day

Winnie the Pooh day. Laura brought a teddy bear to her school. I have no Winnie the Pooh teddy bear – it was always more my sister’s thing. However, I do have something almost as good – a song about WTP that my sister and I made up When We Were Very Young. Now We Are Six teen and nineteen, you won’t find us singing it quite so often. But I couldn’t resist humming it to myself a couple of times today. The words are as follows:

“Winnie the Pooh

Has no shoe, because he’s

Winnie the Pooh, and he

Has no Shoe, because he’s

Winnie the Pooh…”

And so on. It would go on for ages, as we wandered round and round The House at Pooh Corner in search of something better to do. The tune, for the more musically inclined among you, is as follows:

b a B G

B B g g a g

b a B G a g

B B g g a g …

(Upper case are crotchets, lower case quavers (swung) and the bold one is a crotchet followed by a rest). I think once, in a fit of creativity, we may have discovered that “Pooh” also rhymes with “Blue”. But I can’t remember that bit. Anyway, that was our song. Enjoy.

January 17th: Blessing of the Animals at the Cathedral Day

Another animal day! :D Unfortunately, there are no cathedrals in Madison. The closest one is in Milwaukee which is like 2 hours away... So instead of bringing the animals to the cathedral, I brought the cathedral to my animals! I printed off a picture of a cathedral online and taped it in my guinea pigs' cage. They were sort of confused at first but then they started eating it. Here's a picture:

Omnomnom.

Winnie the Pooh Day tomorrow!!!! :D

January 16: Hot and Spicy Food International Day and National Nothing Day

I looooove spicy international food but I'm from Wisconsin so I can't really handle that much... I was super disappointed when I found out we were having ravioli for dinner but that's Italian right? And hot sauce fixes everything! :)
I didn't have school today (Happy MLKJ Day!!) but I went to my friends school in this really small town of 5,000! But anyway, I didn't really do any work since I was just visiting so that sort of counts for National Nothing Day. To make it official, after I finish my homework I'm going to do absolutely nothing - maybe even fall asleep at 7. Ahhhh I like this blog... Sleep Day? Nothing Day? This is gonna be a good year.

15th Jan: Hat Day

Wow. The start of our 3rd week - pretty crazy.

Anyways - it's Hat Day! Anyone been wearing any cool hats? Shout out to Jim Kendall, who has the craziest collection of hats in existence. As for the three of us - well, we're not quite as enthusiastic about our hat collections. But Joe has a pretty nice hat left over from when he played Zorro a while back. Zorro on a unicycle, actually - that was fun. It looks something like this: 

Laura wore one of those "floppy hats" all day. (We don't actually know what they're called...) As an extra way to celebrate, she pinned a paper crane named Morpheus to her head :) I mean, what else is there to do on hat day?

Also, one final note: I wear a Fez now. Fezzes are cool.

14th January: National Dress Up Your Pet Day!!

National Dress Up Your Pet Day is finally here! Joe can't do much with his dog and Jonnie doesn't have any pets so I'm taking over for today - I have 2 guinea pigs :) We used to have a ton of doll clothes we would dress our old guinea pigs in put all I could find were some little pants... they weren't too happy when I tried to dress them in it so I tried looking for something else. Couldn't really find anything that fit them but Libby looked nice in this hat:

I think she actually liked it. At least, she stayed still for the picture. Also, my sister is going to dress up her cat and send me a picture so that'll be up soon :)

January 13th: Make Your Dream Come True Day and Blame Someone Else Day

I’m still not sure what the situation is with Jonnie’s computer, so I’m being the stand-in blogger for today. Which is a pity, because Jonnie has been up to loads of stuff today. It’s “Blame Someone Else Day”. Firstly, Jonnie still hasn’t caught up on Jan 10ths blog, and he’s blaming his computer. Secondly, he broke 7 years of vegetarianism this morning, by eating part of a Cornish pasty. And he blamed it on his mother. Apparently, it “looked like a cheese pasty”.

Then again, maybe he has got a good excuse. It’s entirely conceivable that his mother has been dreaming of the day when Jonnie eats meat, and she deliberately gave him the Cornish pasty because it’s also “Make Your Dream Come True Day”. It’s something to consider…

As for what I’ve been up to… well. In physics this afternoon, a friend and I faked the results of an experiment, by doing a bit of complicated maths and producing the perfect graph. However, we didn’t realise that, to produce this graph, we would have needed to carry out the experiment in a vacuum. Of course, we each blamed the other person.

As for making my dream come true, it’s long been my ambition to disprove superstition. The idea that Friday 13^th is unlucky, for example. Funnily enough, I had two exams today. However, they both went very well. Come results day, if I’ve got 100% in both, I may well have disproved this particular superstition.

Laura's life dream is to be a cute and/or creepy old lady. At first, she put the dream aside thinking it would be impossible to fulfill today... but she was wrong. Her English class acted out scenes from Great Expectations. Naturally, she chose to play the role of Miss Havisham, and be super super creepy. Even creepier than the character is supposed to be. Dream come true <3 Also, just like any other day, she blamed all of her ceramics class failures on her teacher. So. Legit.

January 12th: The Feast of Fabulous Wild Men Day!

Looking this day up online, no one really knows how it started or really that much about it, but I guess it's just like Man Watcher's Day, except... the men have to be fabulous! And wild...? Still not quite sure what I'm supposed to do, but I did look around for fabulous wild men today. I was at school though, aaaand.... yeah. Not the biggest fan of East guys. But, I decided to ask a few friends who/what they thought of when they hear "fabulous wild men". I got John the Baptist twice, a gay caveman, Louis XIV, though not a man... Nicki Minaj, gay porn and Beehtoven. Yeah. I have weird friends.

On the theme of John the Baptist, it's worth mentioning that he lived on wild locusts and honey. Kind of a feast, I guess. Anyway, the point is that Joe would like to say that he has eaten locusts, twice, and they're actually kind of nice. Strangely, they don't taste like chicken... more like the sauce they were fried in. That's honey, if you're John the Baptist, I suppose. So, next time you see some locusts, think of fabulous wild men, and try one!

January 11th: Step in a puddle and splash your friend day.

Coventry. Early January. You’d expect there to have been some rain, leaving puddles everywhere. As far as the eye can see. But no. The rain didn’t want to visit Coventry last night, leaving the ground this morning practically bone dry. Naturally, this made it a bit difficult for me to step in puddles and splash any friends that happened to be nearby.

Not to be deterred, Jonnie and I set off along the road to school, determined to celebrate the day. We tried out the idea of imaginary puddles, resulting in the following sequence of events:

1. I imagine there is a puddle on the ground in front of us.
2. I see said imaginary puddle.
3. I make sure Jonnie is near said puddle.
4. I run up to said puddle, and jump in it.
5. I imagine that this results in a splash.
6. I imagine that the imaginary water involved in said imaginary splash hits said imaginary Jonnie.
7. Jonnie imagines that said water does not hit him.
8. The imaginary water performs a surprising reversal of direction in mid air, and falls to the ground, splashing no-one.

This was interesting, but rather unproductive. Luckily, we then saw a real puddle. I, naturally, jumped in it. Jonnie, naturally, stayed well out of the way. I was not wearing wellies, so ended up with rather wet feet. Jonnie, naturally, stayed dry.

And that’s about it.

January 10th: Peculiar People Day!

Happy Peculiar People Day!! If you haven't figured this out already, we're a little... odd. So all there is to say is, you're welcome.


Note: This was Jonnie's day, but he's been having trouble uploading, which is why it's so short. More coming soon.

Apologies! My computer decided to fail me, but I'm back now! PECULIAR PEOPLE DAY! Well, I am peculiar! Today (a few days ago :p) was basically spent revising for the big exam the next day! I must have spent a good 3-4 hours of fun times writing things down and testing other peculiar people! Oh the peculiarity!

January 9th: Play God Day

What to do on Play God Day? Play Sims, of course! Now that I think about it, it is pretty weird that when you play Sims you're pretty much just watching people's lives and telling them what to do... Well now I feel creepy. Also, this day just got ten times worse because you can't drown sims by deleting the ladder in Sims 3.

Joe didn't want to play God, so he spent the whole day playing Merlin. Yep, that's right. A whole day! Well, 6 hours, at any rate. Saying that, playing Merlin is probably the next best thing, if you believe the script. If he had time, he would write a lot about the links between Merlin and Christianity. But he's not going to. So there.

January 8th: Men Watcher's Day and National JoyGerm Day!

Well then, it's Sunday, and today it's a team effort for the blog. Laura and Jonnie have both been watching men as part of men watcher's day, and Joe has been spreading the JoyGerm! :)

Jonnie
Apparently, Men Watcher's Day is designed for women. But I figured I'd join in anyway! With exams coming up I haven't actually left the house today (revision is the bane of my life) but I did manage to watch some nice men playing football ("soccer" for you Americans) earlier. I particulary enjoyed watching MANchester United play MANchester City. See what I did there? As well as this, later on Sherlock will be on TV, so I can enjoy watching Benedict Cumberbatch's flowing locks as he solves another mystery. And this will be followed by the new series of Desperate Housewives (unfortunately not as many men in this...but it will make me happy, and the joygerm will be born inside of me).

And for the record, I am straight! :)

Note from Joe - I, like Jonnie, was busy doing revision, so didn't get to spread the Joygerm as much as I would have liked. However, revision is going very well, so the joygerm is starting to flourish. Also, a full day off school tomorrow, meaning a massive break from revision, which will certainly be joyful. WIN!!

Laura
I didn't have enough time to man-watch today, and it's the last day of winter break so I have a ton of homework which doesn't make me very joyful... But I found out today is also Cup of Team Day!!! Cup of Team is this group guys who make youtube videos and I'm completely obsessed with them. So I figured watching that counts as man-watching and JoyGerm! Win win! :)

January 7th: Old Rock Day

Old Rock day. Well, I found a couple of fossils lying around the house. But there wasn’t really much I could do with them. So I set out to find out just how much you can do with a rock. After finding four old rocks from various places (One that came with us when we moved from Bristol, one from a volcano in New Zealand, a lump of coal, and a bit of masonry left over from when we destroyed part of the patio), I explored their possible uses.

They’re good for a bit of maths practice; I calculated an estimate of the volume of two of them – one is around 49.5cm³, another around 112.5cm³. I tried juggling with them, and managed to juggle with 2, 3 and 4 rocks. (I can just about do 5 on a good day, but not so well with rocks). I then tried representing rocks as a juggling pattern. After a bit of playing around with numbers, I found that “A Rock” is a 'nice' 8 ball juggling pattern. Sadly, this is beyond my ability to juggle. Some of the other uses I considered are:

• Paperweights. Obvious, but still a use.
• Building cairns. Admittedly, there is a limit to the size of cairn you can get with 4 stones, but never mind.
• Surrounding fireplaces.
• Measurement: If you tie a rock to a piece of string, and lower the string from the top of an object you wish to measure until the bottom of the rock touches the ground, then the length of the rock plus the length of the string equals the height of the object. By this system of measurement, our fridge is approximately 183cm tall.
• And, finally, the best possible use I have ever heard: "Ineffective Frisbees."

Laura has decided to celebrate today with her pet rock listening to Classic Rock. Clever, eh? Eh?

That’s it for now. No idea what Jonnie is up to, but I’m sure he's having great fun!

January 6th: BEAN DAY!!!

YAAAAY!!! IT'S BEAN DAY!!! I can't express how happy I am that it's bean day. I haven't heard from Jonnie today - probably because he's too busy celebrating - but I can assure you he's even happier than I am. Jonnie and I are both vegetarians, so getting protein is a lot harder than it is for meat eaters. That's why we're so thankful for beans. Also... a certain Matt told me it's Rowan Atkinson's (aka Mr. Bean) birthday. Umm... best day ever?? Yes.

Joe's never been a huge fan of beans (not sure how this is possible), but was introduced to cheesy beans (invented by Jonathan Bevan) a while ago, and quite likes them. Naturally, he had a bowl for supper today. Note on this: He tried them with Mozzarella for the first time, and doesn't think it works. The taste just isn't the same. Stick to Cheddar.

Off to go eat some beans. Tomorrow is Old Rock Day - go find your pet rocks so we can celebrate!

PS - Jonnie would like to give some delicious bean recipes:

Cool Beans
Cheesy Beans
Banana Beans :)
Sweet Beans
Curry Beans
BBQ Beans
Bloody Mary Beans (say it three times and you'll wake up in a bath full of beans)

January 5th: Bird Day

Bird Day!! I didn't see any birds today because I was downtown all afternoon, but I did see a picture of a cardinal! Does that count?? In honor of bird day, I think we should pay homage to the great birds of history. My personal favorite is Woodstock from the Peanuts cartoon, but then there's Big Bird from Sesame St., Donald Duck from Disney and of course Frostie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YuLwJPhvYA

Joe saw more than 40 seagulls wandering around his school today, which is strange, considering the fact that his school is about as far away from the sea as you can get in England... He'd also like to add that he considers it unfair that there aren't any cardinal birds in England.

Bean Day tomorrow!!! :D

January 4th: Trivia Day and Humiliation Day

Well, we’re so far into the year that it looks like I’m writing again. And what a day to pick – I get to do the double day again. Apparently, humiliation day is a day to remember how bad humiliation is, and to try and avoid being negative to anyone. Of course, that’s a bit boring. So I thought I’d use this opportunity to mention some of the humiliating things the three of us have been up to.

I’m currently in a production of Merlin, in which I have to sing. A solo. This is relevant because I was rehearsing for it yesterday, and it was dreadful. So, anyone who wants to see me humiliate myself on stage, come and watch it! I won’t say anything about Jonnie – I think the video below speaks for itself. And Laura has an amazing story: see her entry.

Feeling mean now, so let’s switch to the trivia side of the day. Take a look at these facts:

• Britain has the longest coastline in Europe.
• Canada has the longest coastline in the world.
• All coastlines are potentially infinite. (Of course, there must be a limit, once you get down to the subatomic level, but I don’t think that’s the point).

Mind-blowing, huh? To sum the whole day up, I’ve resurrected a video Jonnie and I made a while ago, featuring both trivia and humiliation. Well, maybe more the humiliation part. In fact, the trivia was in the other one. This is just humiliating. Take a look!

Oh, and in case anyone was interested in the trivia there...

• Charlie Chaplin once came third in a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest.
• There are more canals in Birmingham than Venice.
• The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
• Richard Stone was in that video, and wants to be credited.

A Humiliating Story

I have a LOT of humiliation stories, but this by far tops them all. My school isn't exactly... "safe". One of the stairwells on the far end of the school is super creepy and has to be locked. But for some reason, you can still open the doors from the outside... you just get locked in. Oh, and an alarm sounds. Really loud. I have no idea what the school was thinking when they set up this alarm system, because it’s probably the stupidest thing they could think of. Anyway, I use the excuse that I was having a bad day, but the truth is, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the HUGE red signs on the doors that said "DO NOT OPEN - ALARM WILL SOUND" whether I was having a good day or not. I eventually had to call my friend to let me out when security didn’t show up and the sophomores watching wouldn’t let me out. (This is also the reason I hate sophomores...) I found out later that we both could’ve gotten suspended for that. Oops.

January 3rd: National Sleep Day...zzzzzzzzzzz

So I survived the zombie virus and made it through to the 3rd January - Sleep Day! Now of course, the law dictates that when sleep is required, it's the first day back at school and so you have to be up at 6am to be ready on time. The same has to be said for Joe - who failed at sleeping even more, and had been awake since 3am. Laura did much better, staying asleep till 2 in the afternoon. I tried to get a bit of sleep in at school but it's just not the same. There were some wonderful pictures of me and Laura sleeping but unfortunately I can't seem to work out how to upload them! Hopefully, they'll be up later. Also, I'd just like to take this moment to mention the woman who goes to sleep on our bus every morning. She's cool.

Another fun fact: We spend 28 years of our life sleeping. 28 years! Crazy, we spend less time working, eating, socializing and (believe it or not) watching TV.

January 2nd: Run Up the Flagpole and See if Anyone Salutes It Day

Happy Run Up the Flagpole Day!! I had no idea what this expression meant until I looked it up online. According to Wikipedia, it means "to present an idea tentatively and see whether it receives a favorable reaction." Reading this, I got super excited because I do this all the time, though I barely ever get “saluted”. So I brought up some ideas today. Is there really no such thing as cheese flavored frozen custard? I feel like there should be. I mean, I live in Wisconsin...(For you Brits who don't know, frozen custard is like ice cream but thicker and creamier) And yes. I would honestly eat it. I've had mustard flavored frozen custard, nothing could be worse.
Taking the meaning of the day more literally, Joe ran up a lamp post (the nearest thing he could find to a flagpole) Or at least he ran up the first bit then climbed the rest. Sadly, no-one saluted it, but we thought we'd show you a picture anyway.

Tomorrow is Festival of Sleep Day. So. Excited.

January 1st: Z-Day, First Foot Day

Yep, that’s right. It’s Z-day! (Cue debate as to the pronunciation of the letter "z"). Of course, as you can probably guess from the fact that I'm writing this, this morning was obviously not the morning when the zombies came…

It was, however, the morning when my sister came – having left last evening she got back early this afternoon, making her the “First Foot” in the Sidebotham household. She failed miserably to fulfil this role, being neither dark haired nor male, and failing to bring any gifts. On the plus side, we reckon that zombies would take over Macau or Singapore first. So if you’re in the UK, there’s a decent chance that people will have stopped them before they reach you. And there’s an even higher chance if you’re in the USA. Singapore does actually have a lot of trading routes with the west, so best to stay on the lookout for any zombies really. Just stay calm and pretend to be a zombie. Or in Joe's case, act normal.

Fun fact: searching for “zombified scopperloit gherkin” in Google gives only 1 result. I’ll leave Laura to update you on what she’s been up to, so that’s it from me. Happy New Year!

Laura: So, I'm incredibly disappointed I didn't see any zombies today, but let's hope some of you guys did. As for First Foot Day, my brother, being both dark haired and male, turned out to be the "First Footer" sometime early this morning. Lucky year ahead? I think so.

PS from Jonnie: I found out how to edit posts! On a plus note, a tall handsome man did in fact set the first foot in our household, namely me (maybe not handsome, but I am taller than my dear mother!) In other news, a zombie did in fact bite me so I probably won't post here again as the virus is slowly sinkBRAINSing in. If I make it through the niBRAINSght I'll let you know.