22nd – 28th July 2013 (another weekly round-up!)

22nd July 2013
Celebration: Ratcatcher’s Day
Mission: Kill that damn mouse
Status: Already taken care of
Notes: The Pied Piper either rid the German town of Hamelin of its vermin on this day in 1376, as dated by Robert Browning in his poem on the subject, or else he did it 92 years and one month earlier on 26th June 1284, as reckoned by the Brothers Grimm.

23rd July 2013
Celebration: Charisma Carpenter’s Birthday
Mission: Watch an episode of Buffy or Angel
Status: Failed
Notes: Charisma Carpenter was born in Las Vegas on this day in 1970. She played fellow classmate/rival Cordelia Chase in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, before making the leap to LA with Angel when the spin-off show started.

24th July 2013
Celebration: Anna Paquin’s Birthday
Mission: Watch some “True Blood”
Status: Failed
Notes: Anna Paquin was born in Winnipeg, Canada on this day in 1982. She won an Academy Award when she was 11 for Best Supporting Actress in The Piano. She was in various other films as a teenager, including Almost Famous, before landing the role of Rogue in X-Men, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand and the still being filmed X-Men: Days of Future Past. She also plays Sookie Stackhouse – the primary character in HBO’s True Blood.

25th July 2013
Celebration: Matt Le Blanc’s Birthday
Mission: Watch an episode of “Friends”
Status: Failed
Notes: Matt Le Blanc was born in Massachusetts on this day in 1967. He played Joey in Friends, and in the failed spin-off show Joey. He played himself in dead-pan sitcom Episodes. He played Major Joey in Joey In Space. (Or was that Major Don West in Lost In Space? No, that movie was definitely Joey In Space.)

26th July 2013
Celebration: Day of the National Rebellion (Cuba)
Mission: Have a mojito
Status: Complete
Notes: On this day in 1953, Fidel Castro led his 160 men against the army in Santiago de Cuba. They lost the battle, but it was the beginning of Castro’s revolution, and is marked these days by a two-day public holiday in Cuba.

27th July 2013
Celebration: National Sleepy Head Day (Finland)
Mission: Have a lie in
Status: Failed
Notes: Traditionally, on this day every year in Finland, the last person to wake up in a household will be woken by his/her family either by having water thrown over them, or by being thrown themselves into a lake or the sea.

28th July 2013
Celebration: National Tree Planting Day (Australia)
Mission: Plant a tree
Status: Failed
Notes: Most countries have a tree planting day of some kind. Australia’s is the last Sunday in July.

23rd June 2013 – Joss Whedon’s Birthday

Celebration: Joss Whedon’s Birthday

Mission: Watch some classic Buffy

Status: Failed. Don’t know how I missed this one!

Notes: Joseph Whedon was born in New York on this day in 1964. He wrote the script for the 1992 movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not satisfied to leave it at that, he created the seven-series long TV show of the same name, as well as the five-series long spin-off Angel. His other TV shows include Dollhouse and Firefly. He’s worked on many other films too – including Firefly spin-off Serenity, Toy Story, Avengers Assemble, Cabin in the Wood and Much Ado About Nothing.

25th February 2013 – Alexis Denisof’s Birthday

Celebration: Alexis Denisof’s Birthday

Mission: Watch a “Wesley” episode of “Buffy”

Status: Complete

Notes: Alexis Denisof was born in Maryland on this day in 1966 and is most famous for playing Wesley in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and it’s spin-off Angel, although has also cropped up in How I Met Your Mother alongside his ‘real-world’ wife Alyson “Willow/Lily” Hannigan.

For today’s task, I watched “Bad Girls” from Buffy season three – Wesley’s first appearance in the show as Buffy’s new watcher.