The fun never stops.
Sent this out to the international media today:
MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: press@mymilliondollaryear.netTORONTO ARTIST AND ENTREPRENEUR SENDS HER REGRETS TO DONALD TRUMP
TORONTO, CANADA - Artist and entrepreneur Astrid Bin sent her regrets to Mr. Donald Trump and his new wife Melania Knauss this morning for missing their wedding.
“Administering www.mymilliondollaryear.net (which has gotten nearly 100,000 hits so far), corresponding with people interested in my project, perfecting my money-making strategies, and continuing the documentation of making million dollars in 2005 has kept me awfully busy. Unfortunately, my work - as well as the lack of an invitiation - made getting down to Palm Beach this weekend just impossible. I sent them a lovely card. I hope they like it.”
Astrid’s current project, My Million Dollar Year, is a project in which she makes a million dollars in 2005 and documents the entire process online at www.mymilliondollaryear.net, as well as on camera. She will be compiling the footage into a documentary entitled “My Million Dollar Year: The Art of Making A Fortune” in 2006.
The project was inspired by debt, and a desire to change. “At the end of 2004, I was forty thousand dollars in debt from my education and barely able to keep ahead of debt payments and expenses,” remembers Bin. “I didn’t see a way out. I decided that I needed to change my life and do something drastic. Something like making a million dollars in a year. I want to change my lives and change the lives of others with this project - if I can prove that I can change my life with only an idea and conviction, what else is possible?”
The site launched on January 1, 2005 and has already gotten nearly 100,000 hits. It allows viewers to watch the project as it progresses through a weblog, and allows the audience to participate in the project by contributing directly, interacting with Astrid, and buying items that are part of the story (you can buy a copy of a hate letter she has received, or an object that has had a role in this developing story - her dental X-ray that indicated the need for a root canal, for instance). A myriad of objects with the My Million Dollar Year logo are also for sale, such as hats, shirts, buttons, and notebooks.
“As someone who’s made himself famous by being a relentless self-promoter, I hope Mr. Trump understands that I was busy this weekend,” Bin says. “He more than anyone knows that the first million is the hardest.”
You can watch the ongoing story at www.mymilliondollaryear.net.
— 30 —
So that was kind of funny.
What was significantly less funny was coming home at 7pm to find it raining in the foyer of the house. I live in an apartment in a house, and I could see that the windows on the front door were fogged up as I came up the front steps. Weird.
I opened the door to find water dripping from every direction and an inch of water on the floor, the paint peeling off the walls. Apparently a pipe had burst.
The landlords sent over a handyman who turned off the water and said “Wow, that’s a big job.” Luckily nothing inside the place was destroyed, it was all confined to the front hallway.
Less lucky, though, was that the water was shut off and no one’s told us when it’s going to be turned on.
The adventure continues.
I started looking at apartment listings but there’s not a lot available, and even less that’s at a sane price. Hurray.
I’m trying to look at the avalanche of crap that 2005 has brought with it as a prelude to something better, but it’s really hard when you’re broke, the house is full of water, there’s racoons living in the roof, and I need a root canal.
Caught a mouse in the kitchen last night. Heard a rustling in a plastic bag and a mouse was in there. He looked up at me with tiny beady little black eyes and I think we both knew that his fate was in my hands. Although the last thing I need is a mouse colony living in the kitchen at the moment, I couldn’t bear to kill him and I couldn’t bear to him out the back door into the snow (which would have probably killed him anyway, it was in the -20s last night). So I just let him go.
It means I have to clean the kitchen obsessively until I can get rid of them as soon as it’s warm enough outside, but I guess I felt some sort of simpatico with the mouse - he’s just trying to get along and survive like the rest of us.
Maybe it’s necessary for everyone to spend time as a mouse in a bag once in awhile to appreciate not being a mouse in a bag.