what is blog

Oops, I haven't updated this blog in over three months. I don't remember how things worked around here. XD (Also, my banner/header ↑ is kinda outdated)

Okay so things have changed lately, with school having begun. First of all, my life is dominated right now by the manga/anime Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan), not so much on Kaizers Orchestra or the NHL anymore (although NHL13-14 is starting in a couple days, so I might get back into the swing of things). Kaizers meanwhile just played their last concert before an undefined hiatus/break, so... there's a possibility that was their last ever. :(

Anyway, I just can't keep this blog up, what with so little material to publish and not having the guts to ask anyone to follow this blog because it's just so awkward okay I just can't blog I can't-- (I know I can't but I got talked into doing this and it was worth a shot but apparently I really can't--)

I would actually delete this blog if it weren't for all the effort I made into making it look pretty. D:< So as much as I want to get rid of this, I'm keeping it live. See you whenever I come back on (3 months' time again?)

*looks at old posts* ... they are so embarrassing but I don't want to delete them help

Oppdateringer og andre ting

Hi! I've been meaning to update for a while, but I wasn't sure what to write about / was too lazy to turn PC on / nah, was mostly too lazy. XD

My title (attempted Norwegian for "Updates and other things") is probably incorrect or something, but whatever. I'm still into Kaizers Orchestra. :) I've been trying to figure out the chords to various songs from their last three albums lately, although I admit I'm very, very new to guitar work and chord-finding. Also to Norwegian--this is really just for fun, but I'm just gathering bits and pieces of Norsk from everywhere and piecing them together via Google Translate, kaizers.konzertjunkie.com, and etc. Not the best way to learn a language, but once again, I'm not too serious about it, so I'll just go on looking like a fool... Boo.

Anyway, so... I was originally going to rant a *lot* about Kaizers, then decided it might be a bad idea. I mean, who wants to read this stuff? I better start putting worthwhile things on this blog, or else if I keep ranting my brains out here, all personal things, I might get creepy stalkers...

With that in mind, I'm going to configure a good photo system on this blog. Since I'll be posting my art and literature things, it's a good idea to keep an organized archive of picture files/albums and text files... got to learn to program this stuff, haha...

School's starting for me in a week, so I might spend even LESS time on here than I've been spending. That's saying a lot, I don't come here often... anyway so, once I escape my laziness, I'll cook up a good art-viewing system here... Haha like I can. Boo!

Nothing else to say, really. Except that I have been on 9gag a lot recently, and I MEAN A LOT. My gosh. Anyway, that's about it. When I settle into school life again + have good enough art + motivation to work this blog, I might just do that. See you!

Ottsens and Ottesen

How's it going, nonexistent readers? :D
Just going to provide some updates on what's going on in my life.

  NHL

Playoffs
> The Ottawa Senators (Ottsens/Sens) won Round 1 against the Montréal Canadiens, and have advanced to round 2, where they're facing the Pittsburgh Penguins.
> Pittsburgh won Game 1 because they capitalized on Ottawa's penalties.
> Pittsburgh also won Game 2...
> But the Senators won Game 3 less than half an hour ago, and that gives me lots of hope yay :D The next games are gonna be tough. This game was already at home (teams generally play better at home) and it took two extra periods to win (that's a lot of fighting back).
> Game 4 is gonna be good.
Covervote
> I decided to vote for Duchene in the NHL cover vote (see end of previous post for info), but unfortunately Hall won by less than a hundred votes. Frustrating, but at least now it's clear who I'm voting for. :)
> The voting for the next round is now finished, and I will check back into covervote.nhl.com to see if Hallsy made it through! :D

  Countryfic

> No new developments, no new plot ideas... all I'm doing is playing with my characters. :) I like drawing them, and there are so many unofficial fun scenes to drop them into, so... drawing them will suffice until I get a good plot idea.
> Writing them in random situations works too. I'm just not very into writing right now, so.
> As for the characters, I've been developing them-- starting in Scandinavia, because that's where my 2010 self chose to start, being obsessed with Nordic things.
> I started in Norway, naming my Norway-rep Erik Brønstad, and he's the one I'm closest to (basically the only one I've really developed, so... XD) More about him in posts some other time.

  Miscellaneous

> As part of my development research for Erik, I've spent months looking into random Norwegian things-- falling in love with Kaizers Orchestra, a band (wikipedia) (website), following the Stavanger Oilers hockey team to their victory in the GET-ligaen (league).
> I've been really into Kaizers Orchestra, and am totally in love with songs from their last 3 albums (a trilogy, actually) and am learning a lot of Norwegian from them. (Although their dialect is a bit different from "official" Norwegian.)
> I would recommend them for their creative music (I swear, putting orchestra parts into their songs is cool, plus they do all sorts of weird things with scale/key shifts and such, but it's all very good still.) But I know not everyone is going to appreciate the bother of reading translated lyrics, so I won't start shoving in your face how you should totally listen to them right now XD

PS: As for my post title, the name of Kaizers Orchestra's lead singer is Janove Ottesen, and it struck me how similar "Ottsens" was to his name, so... I can't resist some mad word play okay :D

Test 3: NHL!

Testing pictures and thumbnails... with an NHL rant...

A quick history: One day I created Canadian original characters. And then I randomly picked a hometown for them-- and they ended up being from Edmonton.

Deciding that some of them should like ice hockey, I did my research on Edmonton's National Hockey League team, the Edmonton Oilers. I downloaded their iPhone app, followed their tweets, listened to live feeds of their games; so I could be more familiar with hockey. Eventually I started to fall in love with the Oilers, and following them became more of a hobby/obsession than just a "research" thing for my characters.

I followed the Oilers to the end of their 2012-2013 season, watching them peak at hopes for a playoff spot, and then sliding down a 6-game losing streak that took all that hope away. So now, the playoff games are happening, and what team am I following?

OTTAWA SENATORS, BABY! :D

It started when I read about Erik Karlsson's injury last February--he was the first Senator I kind of got to know. After that I didn't really expose myself to much Senators stuff. In the last week of April, while the Oilers finished their season, I started hunting around for a good team to follow during the playoffs. And then I saw an article: Erik Karlsson was returning to the Senators' lineup.

Out of curiosity, I followed the Senators game against the Washington Capitals, the first game Karlsson participated in after coming back (which the Senators won 2-1 in overtime, and also the game in which they clinched a playoff spot!)
And was I impressed with Karlsson!
He recorded assists on both Senators goals, and registered 8 shots on goal--more than any other player. That was when I decided that I should stalk follow Karlsson and the Senators.

(Of course, his beautiful face pleasant appearance helped keep me interested. *bricked*)

At any rate, now I am following the Ottawa Senators on the road to the Stanley Cup championship! In addition to following Karlsson on Twitter, I've also followed a ton of other Senators players ↓

So yeah, I'm more or less following the other teams matched up in the first round of the playoffs, too (San Jose is totally crushing Vancouver, btw), but I'm busy stalking the ADORABLE Senators on Twitter. They just keep messing with each other; so cute! :D

Meanwhile, the Vote for the EA Sports NHL 14 game cover is happening, too! The second round just finished. Being obligated to my Oilers, I voted for Taylor Hall in the second round, along with Matt Duchene from the Colorado Avalanche because Duchene is one ridiculously handsome kid (and yes, I find him a pretty good player, too, lol)

In this third round, the top 16 players get matched up into 8 pairs, and voters have to choose one player per pair.
I hoped Hallsy and Duchene wouldn't get matched...

But they did get matched, and now I'm the saddest, most indecisive person on the planet! I swear. I want to vote Duchene, but I'm pretty sure Hallsy is going to win (I think he's more popular).

And I also feel a bit guilty. I mean I followed the Oilers through everything and voted Hallsy and now I'm just running over to Duchene. XD Whatever. Time will tell.

          _{Erik Karlsson       Taylor Hall       Matt Duchene}
     

Test 2: Countryfic (Original)

There is a TL;DR at the bottom. XD
[Skip to TL;DR]

Hello everybody :D

Okay so, as a first realistic testing post, I will rant about my current original art/literature project, affectionately and tentatively called "the countryfic". :D

Together with one of my friends, around two or three years ago, I was heavily obsessed with random countries and cultures and capitals and stuff like that. We were mostly crazy about Nordic countries, but I'll tell you more about that later.

We wanted to start some kind of original storyline, something we'd write, and draw art for, together. And so we thought, "How about we create a story, with one person from every country "representing" their nation, and then use those "reps" as characters for our epic?!" We were quick to agree on that idea. XD

Basically: 196 characters from 196 different countries. (Although our country list is not yet final. Just ripped off Wikipedia or something. Idk.)

We then began to name these characters, my friend having a big fetish for foreign names. She's named most of them already. (And she's also in charge of pairing them up--yes, they are all paired up! 98 guys and 98 girls. XD)

Our problem now is--we need a plot. I'm more in charge of the plotline and story, so... I want it all adventurous with lots of drama and places to sneak romance into! That would be so cool! Like danger and love triangles and all sorts of weird missions and-- yeah. That type. XD

Even though I know this is a crazy idea and I'll never finish this story (seriously, 196 people to design lives for is a LOT of work), I still want to treat this project as my forever-side-project, and almost like an inspiration dump where I can play around if I have too much inspiration, too little inspiration, whatever.

Back to plot problems. The plot will need to be very universal, or at least not centered on one country alone. This means that the "bad guy" can't be from any of the ~196 countries on the planet, because that would kind of put a single country in the spotlight.

If he's not from any country, what, is he from Antarctica or something? That never actually crossed my mind. Maybe. But if he's human, he's still going to have a NATIONALITY. Hah!

So what, he's not human? But that's almost corny. I don't want to create any more gods/deities, because that's a *bit* overrated, too, I think. It feels like an excuse for having no better plot. So, no gods? If we're not going religion, then we can go in the other direction--science. WHAT? A sci-fi? Aliens are the bad guys? Uhh... IMHO, that's too corny for my liking, too. XD

And so I am stuck. Bad guy = not human, not god, not alien. My dad had actually suggested a more modern "environmental" theme to the story, that would hopefully also spread awareness on environmental issues now, and I'm okay with that. But what kind of adventure would that entail?

(At this point, I'm ranting new thoughts to myself... So. You guys are in on my draft, too. XD)

196 people run around the world in search of a powerful thing that can stop global warming? But I'm focusing on realistic-ness. There is no one powerful weapon that can stop global warming. (And if I do use a "powerful weapon", I feel like I'm ripping off LotR or other books XDD)

Maybe that one powerful weapon is unity. XD That is hardly a tangible object. Hmm.

One of my friends Julia has suggested a plot wherein the characters need to overcome/complete challenges/tasks and divide work among themselves; tensions and dramatics ensue; they eventually find out they have to work together.

That would be a nice theme.

Buuuuut, still plotless. Come on, imagination. I even had crazy ideas where Mother Nature wanted to call up these 196 people and get them to do this weird mission. That's awkward. And then Mother Nature had a "boss" to report to and then there emerged a hierarchy of Mother Natures, and each country on the planet had its own "Nature spirit"-- but of course the Nature spirits wouldn't naturally be divided by country (politically), they would be divided geographically or something, and then my brain fried up. So. XD

If anyone's got suggestions, that'd be cool. Always welcome. Please. c:

TL;DR--
I have a story about 196 people-- one "representative" from each country on the planet. I need a universal, not-centered-on-one-country plot that involves travels, missions, drama, romance, and lots of adventure. No "gods", no aliens involved. So if you've got ideas, I would really appreciate them. XD

Finishing my rant, and thank you. XDDD

Test 1

This is a test.

HI GUYS, I guess since this is in HTML, you won't see the font unless it's installed in your computer (but I'm not sure I am so clueless about this stuff). This is a font called "cinnamon cake".
Century Gothic is better, eh? ;)

Well. Off to do more blog layout editing (: See you all. HAHAHAH