OaB #72: See Your Music Idol Perform Live.

This is one of the coolest things that I've completed. I've been a fan of Jason Mraz ever since I heard his song You and I Both for the first time. This was about four years ago, and I had just found out about Pandora, which together with the iPod I bought has been the best thing ever for my "relationship" with music. Too bad Pandora no longer works for non-Americans.

So anyway. I put in artists I liked, and it found artists that had a similar style. And there it was. You and I Both, by Jason Mraz. It quickly became one of my favorite songs, a song I played all the time, again and again. Then I downloaded some more of his songs. I loved them. So I bought his CDs as well.

This weekend, I was in London (again), and when I came back home to Sweden this Monday, I grabbed a Metro (you know, the free morning paper they have in most big cities). I turned the pages, not really reading, just browsing through, when all of a sudden I have to go back a few pages. "Was that Jason Mraz on that picture!?" I thought to myself. And there he was! The notice said "Win a date with Jason Mraz after his performance in Stockholm!"

This was a sign from above! My idol is going to perform in Sweden and I have a chance to meet him (BYD #21: Meet Your Idol). I never did win, so that sign from above wasn't a sign, just fate playing with me, I guess. Oh well. But the thing is, he was performing at Rix FM Festival, a FREE concert at Kungsträdgården in Stockholm, Sweden. I had to go!

And of course I did go. Me and my friend Mary went there this Thursday (17th of May) and we got a very good view of the stage. And it was just awesome seeing him perform. He a cover of Fly Me to the Moon, his song The Remedy (but with some Oasis theme in it, I think), some song I did not recognize and last but not least his hit song I'm Yours. We also saw Kate Ryan and Swedish singer Patrik Isaksson perform live. We had a great evening!

What's sad is that I would have loved to have met Jason and get his autograph, but for some reason, I was not meant to meet him this time. He had this live performance and CD signing yesterday (Saturday), but I had to work, so I missed that as well. But I have my whole life in front of me to meet him, and one day, I will meet my idol - Mr. A-Z.

I have a video clip of the performance, but the quality is so poor that I don't think it's worth uploading. Some pictures could be fun though! So here is Patrik Isaksson, Kate Ryan and Jason Mraz.

OaB #21: Sleep All Day.

This could be considered cheating... But then again, I make up the rules, so I decide what's cheating and what's not.

When I was in Canterbury, I got a cold. A cold from hell! I guess it was some kind of English cold that my immune system was not used to, because it really knocked me out. I had fever (even woke up in the middle of the night, crawling on the floor for water), a runny nose, a cough, and swollen tonsils, but worst of all - I had a migraine for three days. I did not feel well.

I ended up lying in bed for 40 hours. Once or twice I managed to go to the bathroom, and I also managed to join my homestay in the dining room, when she was kind enough to offer some food. But apart from that, I spent the whole day sleeping.

Me in my room, aka sickbay

But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? And I did get to cross something of my list. :)

OaB #90: Get from A to B Using a Map.

Sorry about the lack of updates lately. As some of you know, I've been in England for almost the whole of April together with my classmates, and ever since I got home I've been in the middle of a move. But I figured I should update the blog with some of the things I've been doing.

We started our time in England by spending three days in London, which was very nice! It's the home of Richard Horne. People keep saying these books are almost my bible. If that's the case, that'd make Mr. Horne my God. A scary thought, isn't it?

London is a very big city, especially if you compare it to Stockholm. This of course means a map is necessary when you want to go somewhere. And when in London, you really want to go to as many places as possible, right? So we ended up using our map quite a lot.

We then spent three weeks in Canterbury, which is very much smaller compared to London. However, if you're a lost Swede like us, you still needed a map, even if you started finding your way after a while. My point is, there was a lot of getting from point A's to point B's using maps during our England visit!

Here we are; Victoria, Erika, Camilla and I, finding our way in London.

OaB #22: Invent a Secret Code.

I want to start this by saying my blog is over one year old! I meant to make a post about it but never got to it. It was the 7th of March that I started this blog! Yey! But now to the main reason for this post - my secret code!

The reason I chose this item, is that I recently bought a CD; Bright Eyes - Cassadaga. It was one of those digipack CDs where the cover is made out of paper. I removed the plastic wrap, and saw that the CD was completely gray. At first I thought it to be a disappointment, but then I opened the cover, and saw that it included a decipherer; a "spectral-decoder." Using the decoder, the artwork on the CD could be viewed, including hidden messages in Russian, Greek, Portuguese, French and English.

Go to Wikipedia to read more about the album! I am the one who wrote about the hidden Greek message. I saw it, searched for the translation, found out the meaning, and when I had done that, I was really inspired to make my own coded message. So one week later, on my spare Wednesday, here it is!

I wanted my secret code to be sort of tricky, to make it a challenge for anyone who decides he or she wants to break it. But first I need to explain how this works. The image below, holds a secret message/clue that you should make into a word or phrase. That word or phrase is the key for deciphering the code.

The cypher works like this: The key word or phrase becomes the first letters in the cypher, followed by the rest of the letters in the alphabet in alphabetical order. The first 13 letters are on line one, and the last 13 letters on line two. You then change the letter in my message into the one above/under the corresponding letter in the key/cypher.

Here's an example. If the key word is Horne, the cypher would look like this:

H

O

R

N

E

A

B

C

D

F

G

I

J

K

L

M

P

Q

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

OaB #32 h & i: Visit Another Country and Your Capital City.

Alright. Long time no writing. I was planning on getting part of BYD number 49 done yesterday by watching the Total Lunar Eclipse. Three weeks of clear night sky - shouldn't be a problem, right? So I get my brother to wake me up at FOUR in the MORNING. I go up, look outside. MASSIVE CLOUD INVASION. Great. So I saw nothing. Not a thing! I take a walk today, and the moon is laughing at me - no cloud in sight! Bah! Two years until the next one - and I don't think a total eclipse is visible from Sweden then...

So anyways. I've realized some of the objects in the book are hard to compete at one single time, as they're divided into many parts. Like, for example, visit the tallest buildings in the world. I seriously doubt I'll be completing that one in one day. And as I don't want to forget to write about things I've done, I decided to split up some of the items in my blog as well. This one is one of them!

There's not much so say about the capital city one, as I pretty much live in my capital, but to be nice, and to make it look like this post includes more than it actually does, I'll add a picture from last summer's farewell-Tea meeting!

As for visiting another country, I technically already completed this one when I went to Finland last summer, but I found this to be more "exotic," hehe... But anyways, here's the story!

January 4th, me, Vallen and Sara went to Gothenburg over a weekend to visit Ivar and party with him. We had a great time. Then, January 7th, me and Vallen flew to Madrid, Spain, to visit Mirre who currently lives there. We stayed there for a week, checking in at Pop's Hostel, and flew back January 14th...

Uhm, this is the reason you should post these things at ONCE - otherwise you forget all the important things that happened in the trip, and the order of things! Anyways, I'll do a short list of what we did, trying to remember all the important parts.

• We visited Mirre, of course!
• We also got to know some of Mirre's friends, including Laila (Love you!)
• We visited two museums, where we got to see real Rembrandt, Picasso and Dalí, amongst many others.
• I met some people at the hostel, including Nicola, Lina, Jungim and the crazy Cypriot guy!
• We went to Lefty's, a store selling leftovers and last year's clothes from Zara stores, where I bought seven t-shirts, one long sleeve shirt for, I think, about 20 euro (including two long sleeve shirts I bought at another store)! Cheeeeap!
• When we arrived, at 12 in the morning, we had to wait until 6am for McDonald's to open, then find our way to the Hostel in a city we've never ever been to, and where almost NO ONE speaks English, until we finally could get some rest at around 9-10am. Phew!
• We were out partying at different places, including an awesome Mexican bar where I tasted a divine Piña Colada and an even more divine Strawberry Dackery!
• We took a walk through the big park in Madrid where we saw people doing lots of things, like inline skating, ice skating (!!), doing bike and skateboard tricks, singing, playing different kind of percussion instruments in big ensambles, and old men playing some sort of Spanish sport... Anyone who tells me the name of that Spanish game (see photos below), shall receive a postcard from me!!

I don't actually remember much more, but I'll ask Valentina if she knows of anything that I should add to this list! Here are some pictures from Madrid:












BTW! Because of my visit to Finland and Spain, and the fact that I live in Sweden, I'll also cross off BYD #36d!

BYD #6: Throw a House Party When Your Parents Are Out

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a great celebration of the new year. 2008, wow! So many great things will happen this year: The UEFA European Football Championships will take place in Austria and Switzerland; the fourth Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, will be released; I'm going to London and Canterbury, England for a month as part of my teacher-training program; and of course, a new President of the United States will be elected, releasing George W. Bush from his duty in 2009!

So, to celebrate the new year, my parents were nice enough to let me have the home for myself so that I could invite people over for dinner. It was really nice and many of my friends were there, including Malin, Rille, Ivar, Janni, Sabina, Isabelle, Anna, Katarina, Susanne and even my brother. Also attending were Joel, Mick, Annika, and Anna.

While my mom were probably not that happy with all the dish to wash that we left, I'm sure she's happy that it wasn't really a rough party. As the book suggests, many things can go wrong while throwing a party, but the party wasn't even close to getting out of hand, except for the one time my cat managed to run away. There were no fires, no awkward romances, no drugs, no drunken stupidity, no reckless behaviour, no breakages, no furniture ending up outside the house, no loud music, no vomiting, no gatecrashers and no Emergency Services called by me or my neighbours. Only some moderate drinking, obviously. It was New Year's Eve, after all!

Thanks to all of you who attended. Same place next year? =)

OaB #9: Play a Computer Game to the End

Ahh. The book is right. Completing a game without help is much more satisfying if you don't cheat or use walk throughs! I was in Umeå last week, visiting lots of friends who live up there, and some who visited Umeå the same week. It was great! And as I have a Nintendo DS, I bought The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass as I had seen and read some great reviews of it.

And yeah, it was awesome! I bought the game on Friday the 26th, and completed it on Sunday the 4th on my bus trip from Umeå back to Uppsala. And as horrible as the bus trip was, as great the game was! So how horrible was my bus trip? Well, I left at 8.20pm, and at first the trip was okay, although somewhat boring. But then both people in front of me decided to lean their seats back as far as possible. Not very comfortable for my knees. Then I fell asleep and woke up like 40 times! At one point I woke up with my one sock soaking wet - and I have no idea why! I arrived at Uppsala at 4.35am, and luckily I woke up, otherwise I'd have missed the stop, as I had set the alarm on the clock on 4.40 (the bus was supposed to be there at 4.45!).

Then the good part started! Katarina came to pick me up, and we walked to Susanne and had breakfast together at her place! Then we had an exam at 9am... I've never been so tired at an exam before!

Anyways, back to the game. I just noticed the title says computer game, but screw that. NDS games should count as well, don't you think? =D

Anyways, I played the game when I had time to spare in Umeå. Sometimes I even played it when I shouldn't have, like when Valentina and Sofia expected me to be social and talk to them. God, they demand so much of me!

I tried to take a picture on the bus of me having completed the game, but as you can see the picture didn't turn out very well. Oh well!

OaB #20: Stay Up All Night.

Trying to stay awake for long isn't really that hard, but writing a blog entry when all you want to do is go to bed ASAP is! I've had this home exam on American Literature and Culture from 10am yesterday to 10am today. Now I am finally free, and can go to bed!! Puh!

Timeline of what I did to stay awake:

7pm-8pm Took a break. Went to buy some food for the cats, and pizza for me and my brother. Watched the latest episode of Life.

8pm-9pm I still took a break and went to ICA to buy some chocolate, coke and ice cream!

9pm-10pm When I got home I took it easy. Mom got home, talked to her!

10pm-11pm I started working on my exam again.

11pm-12am I was very productive, working hard on my essay. No, not really, I kept chatting with Susanne on MSN about how I couldn't find outcome up with anything to write about!

12am-3am I was writing some more on my home exam. By writing, I mean worrying and doing other more important stuff, like chatting on IRC, checking my mail, updating FaceBook to see if something new had happened, etc.

3am-4am Worried some more, and then started watching an episode of a new tv series called Women's Murder Club.

4am-5am I finished watching the episode, and watched this awesome sketch! http://www.v2.fi/hauskat/258/Miksen-nae-itseani-peilista/

5am-6am Watched the latest episode of My Name Is Earl. Greeted mom who woke up.

6am-7am Greeted sister who came to pick up mom. Started working some more on the exam. Finalized exam.

7am-8am Watched the latest episode of Ugly Betty. Said bye to my brother who was off to school.

8am-9am Watched the latest episode of CSI. Talked to Susanne who got back on after having some sleep. We talked some about our exams.

9am-10am Very last edit on the exam. Exam sent in at 9.36! Yey! Then writing this blog entry.



Questions from the book:

What time do you usually go to bed?
At around 12-3am.

How many people stayed up with you?
None. Just me and my exam.

How did you find trying to stay up all night?
Easy

Did anyone have to pinch you to keep you awake?
Not really, lot's of Cola did the trick.

What time did you stay awake until?
I'm heading off to bed immediately after posting this entry, so 10am

Did you see the sun come up?
Yes, I did.

Would you do it again?
I will most definitely do it again! But now - bed. Good night!

OaB #68: Take Part in a TV Show.

I'm sorry, but I had to do it. It was the only way I would ever be in a TV show... I had to go to the Swedish Idol auditions! Let's just say it didn't go all that well. Let's just say, I still ended up on the show. :D

It was in April 22nd that one of the five auditions were held, this one in Skellefteå in northern Sweden. Me and my friend Sarah went there. The waiting time was a pain! It was hours and hours of waiting! All this, for a less than one hour show!

Basicly, I went in there, sang "I can't make you love me" by Bonnie Raitt, and I was so nervous that I blacked out in the middle of the song! (And it wouldn't surprise me if I sang everything off key as well ;), but we'll see tonight when it airs on Swedish TV4).

So Kisthi, one of the jury members, helped me back in. Then, when I was done, Peter, another jury member (the Simon of the Swedish Idols), said "Well Daniel... There's a Swedish saying that goes 'Save what can be saved', and there was nothing here to save."

So I asked him "If I ever do anything like this again, what should I practice on?" and he answered "Practice on never doing anything like this again." This even made it to the commercial, so I know I'll be on TV tonight!!

I'll try to put up the part where I'm on on YouTube by tomorrow! And if I can get ahold of the commercial I'll post it as well. Untill then, here's a picture of me and the two co-hosts of the show; Carolina Gynning and Carina Berg!

OaB #80: Start Your Own Secret Society.

I broke my own rule. Like, the only rule I have for these two lists; Not to count an item that I've completed BEFORE I got the books. But really, this one is too good not to count.

The thing is, when me and my friends Mary and Henriikka went to the Swedish premiere of Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest (July 12, 2006), we realized we share a passion for movies, especially fantasy movies, so we decided to form a society: The Secret Society of Fantasy; SSF.

This weekend, we had another meeting, watching Over the Hedge, The Incredibles, The Royal Tenenbaums and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Which is great, considering two of those movies (Incredibles and Tenenbaums) are on my list of films to watch (OaB #48 and BYD #57).

So I saw this item in the book, showed it to them, and we all decided I HAVE to include this one.

We even have this little homemade membership certificates that Henriikka made. They are really cool! :D

BYD #26: Bungee Jump.

This is the coolest thing I've done. I'm like... still happy about doing it, and it was like 4 hours ago now. (I did it at aprox. 20.45 (8.45pm) and not it's like 00.40 (12.45am)). What an adrenaline rush!!! WOW!

So yeah, as the title tells you, I bungee jumped today. I knew about this event at Kungsträdgården in central Stockholm, and I knew they were going to have this crane from where you could bungee jump. So I had pretty much been thinking about it for like three weeks. I told some of my friends about a week ago, and everyone were like "Yeah! Do it!". So I did. And telling people means I have to do it...

I would NEVER have done this if it wasn't for the book (thank you Richard!); it's giving me a reason to try things I would never try otherwise!

Four of my co-workers (including my boss) were there with me watching and cheering. One of them took pictures and actually recorded me jumping, so you get to watch as well!

Oh, by the way. While at the event, there was this offer about going in a hot air balloon for only 695SEK. The normal price is like 1895SEK. So I bought a hot air balloon ticket! I'll be crossing another thing off my list soon! :)

Also, I was very happy when I saw I had been linked to from another blog! I was added to the list of "creative sites" at http://licarian.blogspot.com/! Thank you Linda!

OaB #61: Join a Club.

I actually completed this item last week - the 7th/8th of July - when I was invited to join the guild (at least that's what it used to be) Nove Avatara; IX. I was had been invited to their meeting in Kotka, Finland, by one of their members, Chris "Fain" Carver. We had both been playing the game Dransik since October 14th 2000, and we both have been staying in the Dransik community for all these years, even though Dransik does not exist anymore (at least not the way we remember it!).

So, at the meet, I met a lot of players that I had met inside the virtual worlds of Dransik all those years ago. And then I was invited to join Nove Avatara. The bestest awesomest guild ever in Dransik. How cool is that?

OaB #83: Dye Your Hair.

Okey, so I appologize to all of you who voted for milk a cow. I promise I'll do that before the summer has ended. But now I decided to start July by dying my hair. Blonde.

And boy, DID it get blonde! ULTRA BLONDE!!! I was prepared for blonde, but this! :D

I don't know if I can really describe very much by words, so I'll let the pictures tell the rest of this item completion!