State of the Blog Ventures

The recent completion of the Reading List, which for a long time was the leading personal raison d’etre of this here blog, has made me wonder where things stand in the rest of the blog ventures. Here’s a quick look:

The Infinite Art Tournament
32%
Strange though it might seem, it looks as though the eponymous art appreciation exercise of the blog in its modern form is already 1/3 complete. We are still a few months shy of the halfway point of the First Round, mind you, but subsequent rounds rapidly get a lot smaller as artists begin to leave the tournament. Heck, we’ve already lost 76 of the 500 artists who get to play in the big show, and the Play-In Tournament, which is only a few months from finishing up, has ground through more than 60 more.

Element of the Month
45%
Fans of fundamental materialism can relax; there are plenty more silvery-grey metals to go through. The original list, which we have been progressing through in random order, only went as high as Meitnerium, nine shy of the 118 elements that are currently on the books. On the other hand, I doubt I’ll have much to report about Ununtrium, Ununpentium, Ununseptium, and Ununoctium, and may combine those and a few of the other lately-named under an “Extremely Fakey Elements” omnibus post.

Michael5000 vs. Shakespeare
10% Texts
13% Performance
24% Film Adaptation
This is one that has been off-again and on-again. It is certainly way down from the heyday when it had a blog all to itself. The theoretical goal is to post on the/a written text of, a performance of, and a film adaptation of, all of the Shakespeare plays. Realistically, I’d like to read all the texts. Eventually. If I live a long and healthy life.

Michael5000 vs. Dickens
55%
The goal here isn’t so much to post about all of Dickens, but merely to read all of the non-Christmas Dickens that I hadn’t got to already. Right now I’m standing at 8 out of 14.5 novels.

Michael5000 vs. The Beatles
23%
With only 13 canonical albums to plow through, you would think I’d make more progress with this one. But it turns out they are very labor-intensive to write.

The Songs of the 50 States
12%
I’ve skipped a few months here. But, the combination of chronicling my banal travels and stoking my desire to see new places, and new museums, is really too good not to bore you with.  I'm also thinking of tossing in the Provinces as a gesture to my country's vast northern bestie; that would knock me down to 10%.  Also, if this were to continue over the long term, there would likely be some revisitation involved.

Saint of the Month
7%
I’ve only done a couple of dozen saints, nowhere near enough to fill up a full daily calendar. The saints project has a very narrow constituency – consisting of Mrs.5000, pretty much – and I’ve thought about pitching it in on a number of occasions. But then, I always find something new and interesting to read about, and dive in for just one more saint.

The Free Box Tapes
3%
There have been some technical hiccoughs here, including a couple of tape players breaking down and the tape that I am supposed to be listening to currently going missing. I expect to pick up the pace in the fullness of time.

The Jazz Thing
2%
This is a long-term, slow-burn project by design. It’s also logistically clunky, as I’ve found it hard to get my paws on some of the recordings without spending money, which I am naturally loathe to do.

Michael Reads the Bible
50%ish, if memory serves, although you'd have to think the New Testament would go a lot slower.
This project still has its own blog, but it is in mothballs and has not been advanced for nearly two and a half years. I would like to return to it someday.

Blog Projects I Completed
100%

• The Reading List
• The Great Movies
• The More Movies List
• The Forgotten Lands
• Flag Fridays
• 100 Thursday Quizzes
• 90 Monday Quizzes
• 90 Wednesday Quizzes

Of course there have been plenty of boring postcards, droll anecdotes, philatelic ephemera, and such like along the way, and also short-term projects like Classical Wednesdays and the recent map reviews, but I'm only thinking about the extensive lists.


New Blog Projects I Sometimes Think About Launching, Because I’m an Idiot
0%

• Another round of Movies.
• A Tour of the arts holdings in the Castle5000 Collection
• A big tournament-style classical music showdown
• More Quizzes
• Language of the Month