A couple of thank yous

Well, tonight is the big night. The culmination of one year of my life attempting to complete (500) Films of Empire.
Inspired by Julie & Julia and desperate to find the cinematic equivalent, it started out as a bit of a laugh, one of those things to do before you're 30, but it has grown into an obsession that has taken over my life. I've basically given up having a social life for the past year due to having to watch films instead of hanging out with my friends, and as for the dating game... forget it.
I certainly know what my next challenge will be... find a date!
It has been 365 very long days during this challenge and the time spent watching all 500 films will have amounted to 59832 minutes or the equivalent of 41.6 days doing nothing but watching movies.
There have been some tremendous highs (Cannes, Empire Movie-Con, watching Alien at the Duke of York's in Brighton) and some lows (lack of sleep, ongoing frustration at work, Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull).
As I gear up towards the final screening tonight, I just want to take a minute to thank a few people who have helped out during this quest.

Thanks to:
Helen O'Hara, Chris Hewitt and Ian Freer from Empire Magazine; Lovefilm for making sure I managed to get most of the films I needed; Matty at Beak Street for designing the awesome poster; my programmer Emily for getting a few of the films on at The Belmont; Scott and Graham for getting me Heimat for my birthday; Sam, Louise, Andy and the rest of the Cannes In A Van crew; Jon and the team at Duke Of York's; the Movie-Con Forumites (there are too many to mention but include Ethanial, Odddaze, Space Cowboy, nclowe, janenotvictoria, etc); all the tweeps and bloggers for their support and kind words; the staff and regulars at The Belmont for lending me the odd DVD; my parents for not disowning me through such a ridiculous challenge; my friends for putting up with hardly seeing me in the past year, I'll make up for that on October 2nd!

I'm sure I'll have missed out someone imprtant but I'l do a full debriefing and analysis of the whole challenge over the weekend after I've taken a couple of days off to recover from the madness!