Bet You Haven't Done These

There's a meme going around LiveJournal that is worthy of wider propagation: List ten things that you have done that people on your LJ friends list probably haven't. I thought it was cute the first time I saw it; unlike the typical LJ meme (Which New York Yankee Are You?) it has appealed more and more with each example I've seen.

So here's my list. My readership extends past my LJ Friends List, but I still think the chances are pretty good that if you routinely read As I Please you haven't done any of these:

• Defeated a bracelet-holding World Champion in a heads-up duel to win a no-limit hold'em poker tournament.

• Defeated a Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction writer in a heads-up duel to win a pinball tournament.

• Celebrated a birthday on the summit of a volcano, drinking tequila and singing.

• Stood on the screw of a capsized German battleship.

• Paid for a semester's tuition at graduate school with the winnings from a single hand of poker.

• Collaborated on a short story with William Gibson.

• Invented a formalism that could be used to apply perturbation theory to optical resonators.

• Watched an ICBM and its warhead re-enter the atmosphere.

• Barked like a dog at the opening of a graduate seminar.

• Leaned back while sitting on the rim of a redwood hot tub, fell backwards onto the stairs leading down from the deck to the yard, rolled down those stairs in a reverse somersault, and stood up, completely uninjured. (Don't try this one at home.)
  

On my Friends List, either or both of Paul Phillips and Patti Beadles may have done the first one; if anyone in my wider readership has, post a comment, because I'd like to know about it.