I Am The Modern Day Dice Man - thumb.it

One of my favourite books is The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart. He creates a new life by deciding everything he does on the throw of the dice. I've tried it on evenings out - one memorable mates 40th birthday drink up in London took us all over the place in different bars and clubs and deciding what we drank each time.


I got invited to his 50th birthday drink tomorrow night and it reminded me of what we did a decade ago. So I set out today on its anniversary with another mate - Terry - on a social experiment to use a modern version of the Dice Man - namely the opinion and voting social service thumb.it which I've used it for some time and love it so here goes.


Vote 1 - Met at 10am in Laos Cafe in Highgate. Explained to Terry the idea and to be honest we had no real idea of what to do. First question then was easy 


Leaving cafe - shall we walk to highgate village (thumb up) or archway (thumb down)


Instantly getting votes we decided we would take the result after 30 votes (you usually get about 100 before it dries up)


We got the comment -


Highgate village yr less likely to get mugged there.


Amazingly on 29 votes it was exactly 50/50 (some people vote neutral) Wow - what a start, our whole day already depending on one random person somewhere in the world. Thankfully Highgate Village won it and off we trekked.


Vote 2 - Arrived in Highgate Village - yes a bit ponsy but the masses sent us there.


Should we go into betting shop (thumb up) or oxfam (thumb down)

Of course most users are American so don't know what Oxfam is but damn blast Oxfam won. So in we popped.

Vote 3 - Oxfam book shop - a lot of people around and we looked suspicious. We decided to choose one book each and do the vote.

In oxfam - which book to buy - abramovich (up) soft toys (down)

Surprise surprise a whopping 97% chose Soft Toys. Cost £2.50. Arrgghhh. 

Out into the street and realising we would have to carry the blasted book around all day Terry had a good idea and went and donated to the Cancer Research Charity Shop opposite.

Vote 4 - Needed to get away from Highgate - even the charity shops were posh.

Walk through park (up) or get a bus (down)

Nice and easy I thought although I wasn't impressed with one comment of the park said 

That place looks like rapists hang out there, you'll fit in fine ;)

Hmmmm. Do they not realise the seriousness of all this.

Anyway - we got lost. Thought we were in Tufnell Park and actually nearly at Kentish Town. Bit tired and saw a pub Id heard good things about - The Southampton Arms so in we popped. 

Vote 5  - Lots of real and cider so....

Which cider? Cider bus (up) burrow hill (down)

72% for Burrow Hill and very nice it was too.

Vote 6 - Quick walk to Kentish Town and hungry now.

Lunchtime pret (up) Indian curry (down)

Bloddy boring buggers - we really fancied a quick curry and 55% voted Pret.

One person I noticed commented "William Hill" which was next door and missed out on earlier so in we popped after lunch.

Vote 7 - Bookies - Sunderland dog race at 1:04

Betting shop. £10 on Ballymac the man (up) or two step blue (down)

94% of people voted for Two Step Blue. Useless dog came in 5th out of 6. This is getting expensive

Quick walk to Camden Market. 

Vote 8 - A lovely lady on a dutch mini pancake stall offered us some Dutch Dunkers. Which flavour though?

Dutch Dunkers - Ferrero rocher (up) rocky road (down)

Close thing but Rocky Road won with 53%.

However, time was running out and with our last vote being rejected by thumb.it accusing us of spam we decided at 2pm to call it a day.

Our experiment was done - a very enjoyable success I felt - although with coffee, scrumpy, jalapeño wrap and very sweet pancakes I was starting to feel sick.

What it did also do was provided me and Terry with 4 very funny but potentially classic business ideas which you never know one day could provide the story of another blog.