{"id":270,"date":"2009-01-14T17:01:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-14T17:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html"},"modified":"2009-01-14T17:01:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-14T17:01:00","slug":"13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html","title":{"rendered":"13 Possibly Surprising Things I Have Never Done"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It occurred to me last night, <\/span>with the much-hyped premiere of another season of “American Idol,” that I still have never watched a full episode of it. I’ve seen a couple of clips, of course, and I caught part of an episode last year when that white-guy-with-dreads was singing. But that’s it. I fancy myself somewhat knowledgeable about pop culture, but I have not ever watched the biggest television show in pop culture.<\/p>\n

And you know what? I’m not about to remedy that. I feel a perverse pride in never having watched “American Idol.” Why give in to my ignorance and break what is, at this point, a pretty impressive streak (even if I do say so myself)?<\/p>\n

Besides that, there are some other things I have never done. They might surprise you. So I’ll list them:<\/p>\n

1. <\/span>I have never watched an episode of <\/span>“American Idol<\/span>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

(Yes, I mentioned that already. But I thought it should appear in the list anyway.)<\/span><\/p>\n

2. <\/span>I have never seen <\/span>It’s a Wonderful Life,<\/span> with Jimmy Stewart.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. <\/span>Speaking of classic Christmas movies, I’ve never seen <\/span>Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story,<\/span> or <\/span>Christmas Vacation<\/span> either.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. <\/span>I have never been to a sushi bar. I like almost all kinds of seafood, but have never really developed a taste for sushi.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. <\/span>I have never watched an episode of “Big Brother” or “The Hills” or “The Sopranos,” to pick three unrelated but popular television shows.<\/span><\/p>\n

6. <\/span>I have never been scuba diving. <\/span><\/p>\n

(But I love water and have snorkeled numerous times).<\/span><\/p>\n

7. <\/span>I have never broken a bone.<\/span><\/p>\n

8. <\/span>I have never traveled outside the western hemisphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

9.<\/span> I have never been hunting, even though I live in West Texas. <\/span><\/p>\n

(OK. That’s a lie. I went hunting for wild turkey with my dad once when I was 12. In about six hours of walking, we saw two. I shot at one. Missed, and was glad. Have never been hunting since.)<\/span><\/p>\n

10. <\/span>I have never been snowboarding.<\/span><\/p>\n

11. <\/span>I have never been to Boston in the fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

(That’s a Christian pop-culture shoutout. Can you identify it?)<\/span><\/p>\n

12. <\/span>I have never lusted after an iPhone or used my cell phone to browse anything online. <\/span><\/p>\n

(Distance is good. I don’t want to carry my computer around with me.)<\/span><\/p>\n

13. <\/span>I have never owned an album by Metallica, Guns ‘n Roses, Michael Jackson, or any hip-hop artist recorded later than 1993.<\/span><\/p>\n

————-<\/p>\n

That’s my list. At least part of it.<\/p>\n

What have you<\/span> never done?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It occurred to me last night, with the much-hyped premiere of another season of “American Idol,” that I still have never watched a full episode of it. I’ve seen a couple of clips, of course, and I caught part of an episode last year when that white-guy-with-dreads was singing. But that’s it. I fancy myself…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,19,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-lists","category-random"],"yoast_head":"\n13 Possibly Surprising Things I Have Never Done - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"13 Possibly Surprising Things I Have Never Done - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It occurred to me last night, with the much-hyped premiere of another season of “American Idol,” that I still have never watched a full episode of it. I’ve seen a couple of clips, of course, and I caught part of an episode last year when that white-guy-with-dreads was singing. But that’s it. I fancy myself…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-14T17:01:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.textually.org\/ringtonia\/archives\/images\/set3\/after-american-idol-its-time-for-vietnam-idol_14.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Boyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"13 Possibly Surprising Things I Have Never Done - O Me of Little Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"13 Possibly Surprising Things I Have Never Done - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"It occurred to me last night, with the much-hyped premiere of another season of “American Idol,” that I still have never watched a full episode of it. I’ve seen a couple of clips, of course, and I caught part of an episode last year when that white-guy-with-dreads was singing. But that’s it. I fancy myself…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html","og_site_name":"O Me of Little Faith","article_published_time":"2009-01-14T17:01:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.textually.org\/ringtonia\/archives\/images\/set3\/after-american-idol-its-time-for-vietnam-idol_14.jpg"}],"author":"Jason Boyett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html","name":"13 Possibly Surprising Things I Have Never Done - O Me of Little Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.textually.org\/ringtonia\/archives\/images\/set3\/after-american-idol-its-time-for-vietnam-idol_14.jpg","datePublished":"2009-01-14T17:01:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-14T17:01:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.textually.org\/ringtonia\/archives\/images\/set3\/after-american-idol-its-time-for-vietnam-idol_14.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.textually.org\/ringtonia\/archives\/images\/set3\/after-american-idol-its-time-for-vietnam-idol_14.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have-never-done.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"13 Possibly Surprising Things I Have Never Done"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/","name":"O Me of Little Faith","description":"A blog by Jason Boyett about Doubt, Christianity, Culture & Writing","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7","name":"Jason Boyett","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","caption":"Jason Boyett"},"description":"Jason Boyett is a writer, speaker, and the author of several books, including O Me of Little Faith (Zondervan), and the Pocket Guide series (Jossey-Bass). His work has appeared in Salon, Paste, The Daily Beast, Relevant, and a variety of other publications. He has also appeared on the History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Jason lives in Texas with his wife and two kids. Follow him at twitter and jasonboyett.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/author\/jboyett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}