And so another Monday begins...

....Because I totally didn't post yesterday since I was trying to write my essay... And only came up with one sentence for the introduction. *fails* But my website is going really good and I finished my plan for the Switzerland x Austria manga anthology in Japan. Yippee!! (though that's completely irrelevant to what I'm doing in class)
Anyway, this morning I shall bring you a review of Carpark North's recent album (which was released in 2008 xD) 'Grateful''s review.

Raid 17: Carpark North Album Review
I listened to this album not too long ago and it's actually really good. And am not being patriotic this time (lol). The album has that beautiful soft rock sound but has a little edge to make it sound really good as it compliments each other. The track list is as follows:
01.More
02.Shall We Be Grateful
03.Save Me From Myself
04.Leave My Place
05.Lost (Peace)
06.Last Song
07.The Everlasting Tie
08.Within My Reach
09.Bring The Lights
10.Cancer
11.Shutdown

And the lyrics don't need translation since it's all in English, yay! xD 'Cos I'm trying to translate Sanne Salomonsen's songs into English.... Which is pretty tricky considering I don't know all of the rules for Danish yet. T_T Getting there.
First of all, the first three songs are amazing. 'More' has a really cool video game sound plonking at the start and then hits into the guitar sound. Awesome.
Most people living in Denmark will know of the second and third since it's been on TV, with 'Shall we be Grateful' having a rock sound and mellow verses that seem to want to speed up, which they do in the chorus. In 'Save Me From Myself' it's a relaxing melody with nice harmonies in the vocals and makes you want to take out a neon glow stick. While singing along. ^^; Probably my favourite song on the album. Well, all of them are good really, so if I described them all the post would be horribly long.
But it's definitely worth the money to buy a copy if you can.

Anyway, I have a lecture after this so better get going to that. Studying about Greek and Roman architecture and whatnot. It's interesting but it's always hard to concentrate...xD
So yeah, until then! Ciao ciao~

Design Week in Copenhagen

OMG yes. This makes me love Denmark more than I already do. ^_^
Raid 16: Design Week
Until the 6th September, Copenhagen is going to be covered in events showcasing designers' work, varying from furniture and technology and it's all tied in with the COP15 UN's Climate Conference with the theme being 'sustainability'. Yaay!! Danish designers are known for their amazing internationally and it's a great opportunity to showcase their work publicly, since this is the first time they're going to do it! Damn, I wish I could just fly over there and go to the events...T_T Why am I in a foreign country!!?? ...Must wait until I graduate...sigh.
But also, just the day before the book I ordered arrived at my door and can't keep my eyes off it. I finally was able to buy 'Dansk Design'!! I saw it at the bookstore and it was hideously expensive so I looked it up on the online bookstore I always go to and it was almost 30 cheaper... On top of getting a discount coupon from them by sheer coincidence, it couldn't have come at a better time. Ugghh it has so many pages, it's so overwhelmingly awesome!! >v< ...My next aim is to save up for a bracelet from Pandora. God I love Danish designed jewelry. Hoorah for Danish design!!! The next raid will be an album review for Carpark North's 2008 album 'Grateful'. I recently listened to it and it's... good! Seriously. I say that about anything Danish (since I'm horribly patriotic...for some strange reason), but Carpark North have a soft rock style that's so relaxing to listen to. And it's in English so I actually know what they're talking about!!^^ 'Cos my Danish skills are really really basic.
anyway, I'll leave it here. Until the next raid!!

Music Review

Goddag everyone! I haven't posted this week due to doing work for my classes (illustration, animation, etc.) but I can at least put up one post before the next week arrives.^^ Today's raid will be an album review of Dune's new album 'Enter Metropolis'.

Raid 15: Enter Metropolis!

The new album from the Danish band Dune released on the 14th of August 2009 and has their singles 'Victim of the City' and 'Heat'. I wrote a post earlier to say that it was about to be released and I also embedded a Youtube video of 'Victim of the City', and now it has! ^_^ Just hadn't thought about doing a review until now. But yes, I had a listen to the album and it's pretty good. Not amazing, but pretty good.
Some of the songs were really generic and you could either get sick of them easily or it can be listened to as background music with relative ease. Not saying they're bad of course! >v< The other ones such as 'Heat' and 'Victim of the City' are very catchy and lovely to listen to. In 'Heat', there's a bit in the middle of the song where the vocalist starts whispering which isn't in the music video (the composition is different between the MV and the track itself). It sounds really cool 'cos when Danish people speak in English their accent sounds so awesome...! xD
Some other good songs on the album are 'Let Go of Your Love' and 'Get It'. It would be nice to hear what songs everyone else likes^^
Overall, I'd give the album....7.5/10. Sorta swinging back and forth between 6 and 7 points. Meh.

Lastly, as I was saying before I've been a little busy with doing work and such... I'll also have an illustration up soon for illustration class. It needs to have one point perspective and a character and such. It's really fun though, since it has a lot of creative freedom and I can challenge myself to draw thing I wouldn't normally draw. So I'll post it on Pixiv once it's complete and link it to this blog.

Bye for now!!

Danish Film Review

As I said before (yesterday), I was planning to see the 2008 Danish film "Flammen og Citronen". And I did. It was pretty nerve racking since it took a lot of effort to get the tickets (running back and forth from school and the venue) but managed to get the tickets on the day which was amazing considering that over half the tickets were sold out from the day before. I wouldn't have guessed that so many people wanted to see it...! But got a good seat near the front so kicked back and watched the movie. So today's raid will be a film review for "Flammen og Citronen"!!

Raid 15: "Flammen og Citronen" Review
The summary taken from Wikipedia:
Flame & Citron (Danish: Flammen & Citronen) is a Danish Drama/Action movie from 2008. The director and co-writer of the movie is Ole Christian Madsen. The movie is based on actual events and eye-witness accounts of two of the most active resistance fighters in the Holger Danske resistance group during World War II, Bent Faurschou-Hviid (known as Flame) and Jørgen Haagen Schmith (known as Citron), who both died during the war.

Because I'm really bad at summing up a description for movies. -_-; But yes, I never watch WWII themed movies since it's always depressing and I would normally rather watch something fictional but considering it's a Danish (+Czech Republic + German)film and I'm annoying patriotic about Denmark and it had good reviews, I thought I've give it a go. And it was totally worth it.
The cinematography is fantastic with interesting camera angles and character profiles. The actors who played Bent and Jørgen were amazing. They portrayed their roles very nicely with a mix of good acting and good looks (lol) and you could relate to how the characters were feeling. It's a bit weird saying that since it's based on a true story....
The soundtrack was beautifully done capturing the essence of that time. Also the fast and slow music were pieced together into the cinematography well so you didn't feel out of place and confused because of the music when watching it.
It was thrilling all the way through (as you would expect in a war themed movie)and you never knew what to expect, unless you had previously known about the event. If not, the only obvious thing was that they would eventually be killed.
It was all in Danish and German with English subtitles (which can be a pain in the ass if you know the languages or you're afraid the translation are wrong, which is how I felt). I understood some of the basic Danish and German that was spoken... Kinda. And found a real funny typo in the subs: 'Location: North Sealand' ....Sealand? Oh god. I guess it looked too similar to 'Nord Sjelland' and they got confuddled. xD Also 'Ja tak!' was translated into 'Leave us!' ...Hmm. Makes sense in context but whether it's direct is another question.
This is turning into a language critic fest so I'll leave it with a score:
9/10. Definitely. It's so good that I'm planning to buy the DVD from Ebay. And I'm really stingy with money so it's a big deal. xD

... Which reminds me, I want to buy that Dansk Design book too.

I give myself too much work. T_T

Just recently (about 10~20 minutes ago from this post) I was in class working on mocking up a website in Dreamweaver and Photoshop and am using Himaruya Hidekaz (creator of Axis Powers Hetalia)'s website as a model. Which probably isn't a good idea considering he's very good at designing websites, games, etc. and I always seem to try to jump a big hurdle in order to do the best I can. The exact same thing happened last year with my art panel, yet I still managed to complete the work, which was amazing in itself. ^^; But enough about my stuff, onto more raiding!!

Raid 13: New Danish Bank Notes

Don't they look so snazzy? :3  Designed by local artists, they've been issued out on this day yesterday. So far the 50 kroner note has been released and will be used until 2011 and the 100 kroner note will be introduced in 2010. Having the notes designed by local artists is really something special, and gives it that at-home feel to it. I guess. In New Zealand, our coins were changed a few years ago because people were complaining that their change was too heavy. Before that the 5 cent coin was gone (the one with the tuatara on it) and the 10c, 20c and 50c coin was changed. The 10c had the same design but it was a different colour and the coins became magnetic. It's kinda strange thinking about it...O.o; 

But anyway, apparently these Danish notes have been changed so that they have more security than the notes before them and reduces the risk of people creating counterfeits and have a fancy hologram. Of course.

Raid 14: Noto-sama 6 has been released!!

It's official: the game created by Himaruya Hidekaz has released a sequel to Noto-sama 5, known as Noto-sama 6!! ^_^ Apparently the bugs have been fixed and the story continues one day after the previous game. The download is available on his blog entry but it get overloaded extremely easily so you can also download it from his upload on Windows Live in Skydrive. Can't wait to play it...! but first I must get Microsoft Frameworks 3.5 Buh. Which is a pain... But it's so worth it. Some of the graphics are on the Hetalia Livejournal Community and it looks AMAZING. Definitely worth a look if you don't play it. 

This is all the raiding I'll do for today, as I'm going to go see the Danish film 'Flammen og Citronen' tonight!! Which will be very exciting. Sitting in a dark room in front of a massive screen for 2 hours. YEAH! I shall put a raid on what it was like later this week.

Hej med dig! 

Lækker lækker lækker!

Can't get enough of Danish rap artists Nik & Jay's 2008 album "De Største". Currently listening to the remix for "Lækker" featuring LOC...! Nik & Jay are worth a listen. Although every Danish artists I've liked I've recommended... For some reason I'm really patriotic about Denmark. And I'm from New Zealand. Although my ancestors were (apparently) from there so there's a good excuse. Today's raids are on more illustrations I've done and a little bit of Kiwi celebration. ^_^

Raid 11: Denmark & Norway, YEAH!

...Strange title, yes. But I have drawn my first Hetalia manga, woohoo! And it's of Denmark and Norway. Hetalia fans that like the Scandinavian characters know that each of the Nordic countries has its own disturbingly difficult to understand Japanese dialect (Finland and Iceland's accents are mainland though). And Japan has god knows how many dialects. There are just too many. Since it's northern Europe they have dialects from the northern parts of Japan which can sometimes be incomprehensible. I looked up IbaraKing's Ibaraki-ben dictionary just so I could have Denmark say a few phrases. Thank god Norway didn't speak at all in this manga. xD
...I really do hope that one day Himaruya-sensei personifies Faroe Islands and Greenland. And also Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

Raid 12: New Zealand's Big Night In
On this day until 6pm tomorrow night, New Zealand is having a telethon, since the last one 15 years ago! Watched the start of it before going off into the other room to type this up and there were performances from Gin and The Dukes! Gin is so lovely. I heard she has an opportunity to try and make it in America. She's more suited for Europe though...-_-; She has a nice dress sense though. Like Minuet.
The telethon's purpose is to help the school kids in our country get raincoats, school shoes and food so the country's aim is to raise $2,000,000 by calling/texting and donating and all of that goes to the charity that can give them these privileges. Although I can't help but think that the parents of the kids let alone the communities in our country can't even provide these things for them without having to resort to a giant telethon. On the positive side, they're doing something about it.

So until next week, once again trying to think desperately of something to talk about. And hopefully as I get more computer savvy this blog might actually look decent soon.
Ciao ciao~

Starting to feel the spring warmth.

Goddag! Looking outside on the fourth floor there's a blue sky with beautiful white clouds and scenes of parts of the city in construction and the views of the roofs of shopping centres. For some reason there are several surrounding my polytech. Makes it convenient though. :3
So, today I will prattle on about more Danish music, and the anime/manga series Hetalia!

Raid 9: Noto-sama Game on Himaruya-sensei's Website

I'm not saying it's actually on the site. It's about to be. The latest edition of the Noto-sama games being released by "Axis Powers Hetalia"'s creator Himaruya Hidekaz is about to be released in about 2 weeks (he said approximately 10 days since he found a good server for people to get it from). Currently a student of the Parsons School of Design in New York, he's a freakin' legend. For one he's one of the first famous Japanese artists to be successful worldwide without having to live in Japan, and he's very good at flash, photoshop, character design and game making just to name a few. And there was also a time when I got overexcited 'cos I finally clicked that when I was watching Project Runway the location was the Parsons School of Fashion. *V*
But yes, should be very exciting once the game comes out for download since apparently he's fixed the bugs that were in the previous game and is a nice edition after the April Fools game for Hetalia released last month (which I still have to play...). The link to Himaruya-sensei's site is in my bookmarks on the right as [Kitayume.].

Raid 10: Nephew Still Going Strong
The first Danish band I came across since near the middle of the first semester of this year (which is where my obsession with Denmark sprung forth), "Nephew" has been rocking the Danish charts.... Passively. xD They're the type of band that makes you either worship them or want to stab them with forks. Basically, either you love 'em or hate 'em. The band has got a grungy feel to them and use mostly blacks, grays and reds for their graphic design, typography and music videos. Their album cover is lovely as well, with a lion in the middle surrounded by those colours in a linear design. They've also done projects (that are put up on Youtube) for film makers to make a video based on the songs from their latest album "Danmark/Denmark". Which by the way, is a good album. "Va Fangool!" has a very addictive beat. ^^
Below I have embedded the music video for the track "007 is Also Gonna Die" by Nephew. This is a very good example of their visual aesthetic and creativity. Enjoy!!

That shall be all for today, looks like the average is 2 raids per day... A lot goes on in New Zealand (surprisingly) but am always stuck on things to be opinionated about (lol). Now to go read the Copenhagen Post...
Hej med dig!

Wow... August already.

I usually think this every month, but time flies when you have things to do at home as well as doing a degree course. ...Not impossible of course. It's a fine balance between education and leisure, yet doing these things every day without noticing how many days have gone by can be pretty scary if you think about it. But artists, graphic designers, etc, like to work on a schedule and repetition is highly involved. Now, onto today's raids.

Raid 8: A Bit of News from Denmark
...Jeg elsker Danmark!! ...The beauty of learning Danish. :3 Basic Danish that is. I've been learning for about a month my vocabulary is super basic. But anyway, onto some news. Reported in the Copenhagen Post, the popularity of electric cars is on the rise. It's said that they're mostly used on islands like Funen and they're great for transporting tourists at a reasonable price, with as travel distance of 80km with a full battery. The awesome thing about Denmark is that they're actually doing something about climate change and looking for alternative power such as wind turbines and the above, electric vehicles. December will be interesting....
It's kinda similar over here in New Zealand, though you never really hear of anything that's being done in terms of climate change. About a month ago, Denmark just got electric buses that go round the centre of Copenhagen for easy transport but unfortunately it costs to get on it (though they're going to work on making it free). Over here we have the 'Shuttle', a cute looking yellow electric bus that runs round the centre of the city and it's free. It's sometimes really scary to get on them since they're free and it can get really crowded inside. Kinda like a roomy Japanese train. -_-;

Only one raid today, since I really can't think of anything else to say... And I haven't uploaded any images to Pixiv or anything. But have a new Denmark x Norway pic on my Japanese Hetalia fansite, for those that can read Japanese and like yaoi. ^^; Will also be uploading a Denmark x Norway manga in Japanese as well, that will be next week. And some sketches I did in class for a project; some character designs based on Hans Christian Andersen's ideal of the future. Talk about lucky! My favourite Danish writer.
Another thing that really peeved me off was that on the handout I got it said that vikings came from Norway. It's Denmark, Sweden and Norway. GOD. I'm related to the Normans so it naturally pisses me off. xD How sad.

I'll leave it here, and am off to raid some more information to bring to you next week! Hej hej~