In the absence of any other tangible way of measuring one’s progress through life, I thought this might be worth reporting. Although I’m not 100% sure what prompted the Sean Connery-eqsue subject line, but letsh not focush on that, hmm?
This afternoon my Friends list on Facebook (I’m assuming that, at this point, you know what that is?) ticked over to reach 800 people, so to commemorate it I thought I’d put up a blog post. This sort of thing’s important to note for posterity when, in 3 or 4 years’ time, I look back and wonder what my thoughts on the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama were. Yep, talking about bloody Facebook. That’d be me.
So the “point” was going to be that 800 is a reasonably big number – certainly they’re not all people whose houses I’d pop around to for a coffee. A beer, maybe. In fact, some of them I’ve not actually physically clapped eyes onto for many years. But I’m pretty sure that everyone on my list has enough enthusiasm and respect for me to go along with the celebration I’ve decided accurately captures the gravity of the moment.
In April 2007 I was moved by the story of 300 – the true and accurate documentary of the triumph of Leonidas and his 300 brave Spartan warriors over the invading King Xerxes and his legions of aggressors.
Surely the appropriate way of celebrating the ammassing of 800 friends is to gather them all together, get them all in loincloths and oil, and stage a re-enactment of the battle at Thermopylae! I mean, the Spartans only had 300 people – think what we could achieve with 2.66 times as many people ?!
Admittedly, the value of arranging such a thing only becomes apparent should there happen to be an aggressing army trying to fight their way through the pass. And of course there’s the logistical hassle of getting everyone there as well. Given that the bulk of the people in the list live in Australia and the UK I suppose I could arrange some sort of charter flight… I mean, who wouldn’t want a holiday in Greece, eh?
Oh wait, then there’s of course the fact that not everyone’s going to want to spend their holiday fighting. In fact, it’d be safe to say that whereas the Spartan army were a formidable and fearsome fighting force with a well-established technique, the 800 people I know aren’t a cohesive military unit.
Maybe this plan could use some work. Anyway the salient point was “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! 800!” – I realise that it’s not *much* of a point, and certainly won’t be setting fire to any arses at any of our great seats of learning such as Oxford, Harvard, or the University of Rangoon… but still worth making. I think.
So in summary, congrats to Jill Marshall for being lucky number 800, and the beauty of celebrating a milestone like this is that I get to do it all again after a load of people remove themselves from my list as a result of reading this tripe.