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.