Come Take Me!

The time has come again to summarize the year that has passed. You know? The part where I tie up all the loose ends that I have created in this past year, because I am apparently pretty good at that. So here we go..

January
I started selling a few (13) t-shirts at shotdeadinthehead.com, and all was well for some time. In November I stopped selling them for a couple of different reasons. It mostly boiled down to two main reasons; I wasn't comfortable giving away the design rights and I felt like shotdeadinthehead.com was not as transparent in answering the questions that I had. No hard feelings, the time my tees was there was nice and it was if nothing else a very learning experience. They sold a total of 48 tees of my design, so to those 48 people out there who bought them. I don't know who you are, but thanks..

February
I got married. It's awesome, my wife is awesome.. we're all just a bunch of awesome fuckers!
On a different note, Sacky hasn't been very helpful.. but mostly because I forgot I even had him.

March
I got the splendid idea to read 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, as in I wouldn't read the book that summarizes all of the other books, but to actually read them all. So far I haven't gotten further than about four of them but that's mostly because of a lack of trying. I can read a couple of hundred pages in a couple of hours, but I just haven't really read that much these past months. But at least I don't have to think about what to read.. ever again.

April
Ordered "Build your own Ukulele kit". Today is the 31st of Decemeber.. and I still haven't decided what colour to paint it. So yeah, not a lot to say there. My son likes his though and actually "plays" on it semi-frequently.. it always warms my heart when we play guitar together even though we're both "kind of" bad at it. I'm better than him.. obviously, I have played for 10+ year.. he's had it for 6+ months.. and also he's three. But he might get there someday given enough encouragement and personal interest. No rush.
Also.. Sad Laptop becomes too sad and dies and Samsung teases me by withholding it's updates.

May
We move to a new apartment.. because the old one has too expensive to live in with only one income. And I have my eyes opened to the wonderful world of coffees, which I then talk about.. a lot. And then a little more. So I won't do that now. But that reminds me that I still have a few double-blind studies to do.

June
I turned 28.. I think.. I am 28, aren't I? No wait.. 27, yeah.. that sounds about right. Someone correct me if they know, I am actually not really sure.
Went fishing with Ted Bundy and Jerry Brudos (names adjusted to be be funnier).
Uploaded a song I had made years, but no one seemed to care.
Talked about coffee.

July
July was pretty uneventful it seems. My son turned three and I started shaving with single blade razors. Oh yeah, and someone visited my blog by searching google with the phrase "free slutcocking movies".. oh gawd.. Mr. Internet, you perv.. you still make me laugh.
Talked about coffee.

August
Built an acoustic stomp box that did not work, got bored with it, forgot about it and haven't looked at it since. Started learning MySQL so that I could code a new statistics tracking website for our NHL playing. Finished it in September and it's awesome. To date we have 439 games tracked with a total of 2440 goals made. Which I think is quite a feat, considering there's only 11 of us, and about 8 of those are active players. You can check out the documenation at my flickr account.
I also performed at this year Night of the Arts, at Föregångarna as usual. With mostly my own material, which was a lot of fun. You decide if I suck or not.

September
I made two books for my wife for her birthday. When I say made, I mean I didn't write them, but pretty much everything else.. sort of. Never mind, read about it here and you'll get the picture. My Movie Genre Posters also expanded their horizons and so I wrote a bit more about them.

October
In October I realised how many games there were that I had wanted to play but hadn't and got right to it by playing LIMBO, which consequently scared the ever-still breathing crap out of me, but in a good way. Then I had some of the most expensive and sought-after coffees in the world and thought it was "meh".

November
www.fiinixdesign.eu finally got it's well earned overhaul when I redesigned and recoded the entire website. I am actually thinking about revising the design still, but I haven't decided if I am going through with it. I also tried to make an ass of myself on national tv by auditioning for Finland's Idols, but the judging panel just said "Thanks, but no thanks..". So my glory-story was cut pretty short. Idols starts airing tomorrow by the way, but I think the Vaasa Auditions won't air until a couple of weeks more. I will update as soon as I know more. The sculpted doll I started on some time ago was finally a bit closer to being ready, so I of course posted some pictures of it. And I talked about coffee.. again.

December
And so we finally arrive at December, which is right now. At least for a couple of hours, then it's "Bye bye 2011" and "Hello the year that comes after 2011". I didn't blog much in December and when I did it was mostly incoherent ramblings that already doesn't even make that much sense to me.

Not really that many loose ends to tie up though it seems.

Two things though that I suppose one could call big deals.. (I'm being sarcastic towards myself). My new surname is now Eriksson, because.. well.. I changed it, so did my wife and our son. So henceforth we shall be known as The Eriksson Family.. it feels kind of nice to have a collective identifier. The other thing is that I have as of yesterday, officially started looking for a job in the UK, because we're planning on moving there as soon as possible. So if anyone wants a passionate and outside of the box thinking designer, here I am, come take me!

Can I Stick My Head In It?

Apparently this is 2011's hot Christmas item. For people who can't afford more expensive wine but like to make their neighbours think they can.. or something like that I suppose. Does it actually work? Beats me, I haven't tried it.. I'm obviously not going to try it.. because I can think of better things to spend $59.99 on.

Allegedly it uses the power of magnets to realign the particles in your beverages. Or some similar mumbo jumbo (colour me sceptical) like that and according to about half of the review, "It totally works!".. the other half obviously being more towards the "bah humbug!" attitude. If anyone I know ever happens to buy one, I will so 'effin try it.. and let you know.. double blind study -style, of course. I didn't even know SkyMall was an actual real place (references in "How I Met Your Mother", episode "The Goat") until I read about this "Wine and Liquor Accelerator" -thingy.. that honestly.. looks a bit like a triple headed masturbation aid tool. Just imagine it without the wine glass.

Someday, when my morals have gone even further down the drain and I feel a strong urge to make reality of the saying "A fool and his money are soon parted" I will invent the DeAger 3000! And I will spell it intentionally with an exclamation mark. It will be a machine that prevents decay (both physical and mental).. you know.. "ageing".. using the awesome powers of make believe and unicorn farts.

Pre-order now, for your Deluxe DeAger 3000!, including a small dose of my own farts for a limited time only.

Yet I can't help but wonder, if it does work.. what happens if you stick your head in it?

Silence Fills The Empty Grave

And well.. other deep things people might say to desperately grab someone's attention when they have just neglected to blog for a while, feel bad about it but don't see things changing any time soon. All in due time my friends, all in due time. And it nothing else, hopefully by the time I have more time to post something longer than a few sentences, I will also come bearing good exciting news.. but as of right now. No, not so much. I promise I will tell you all there is to tell about my audition for Idols and everything else I have neglected to share in these past two-ish months. But alas, as things are looking right now (for reasons I won't say here) I will probably not tell much until next year. Luckily for you (all seven of you) that's like under a week. But a lot can happen in less than a week, life changing things even.. which probably makes it sound more dramatic than it is. But at least I think it's a bit life changing.. maybe not "I'm dying of a rare congenital condition and only have two weeks to live" -dramatic.. but dramatic nonetheless. So if you wouldn't mind, bare with me a little while longer. And hopefully you won't end up being disappointed by the end of it..

At least I have started being more active at twitter lately. Even though most of the crap I write there is probably of very little interest to anyone. For those of you curious enough.. here you go.

One last things now that I think about it. A promise to my future self, the start of next year shall bring light to darkness, no matter the outcome.. okay? Okay. That's a promise, and I try to keep the few promises I make.

It Can Play Crysis 2!

Say hello to Open Cloud Gaming Platform from Gaikai. Yeah, that's what they call it, so that's what I'm calling it too. What does it all mean for us mortals? It 'effin means that you can play Crysis 2.. in your browser, right now.. for free. Sure it's just a demo, but considering that back in 2007 most people's computer couldn't even play Crysis, albeit on awesome graphical settings. Now in the future of 2011, soon to be 2012, you can play Crysis 2 in your browser. The future is looking pretty awesome isn't it?

You can also play e.g. Bulletstorm, which is actually a game I have wanted to try so obviously I seized the opportunity to do so. Am I going to buy it? No, it didn't really seem like my kind of game in the end, although the "Kill with Skill" does seem like a fun concept. It just felt a bit too ADHD for me.

So what are you waiting for?! Go, right now, and try any or all the games listed in their showcase. Because you can. Except for both The Sims games, which seemed to be region locked for now.. of course.. because I wanted to show my wife that she could try The Sims: Medieval.

Disclaimer: I know there are graphical differences between Crysis and Crysis 2 making my comparison a very unfair one, but just go with it anyway. It's still pretty cool that you can play it.. in your browser baby!

Another Inactive Friday

So yeah. Another Friday with a severe lack of posts from yours truly. I know, I know.. I should be ashamed. And I am.. well.. a little at least. But not enough for it to warrant an actual post. This is more of an "I'm sorry for the lack of posts" -post. Are things going to get better at some point? Of course. Is it going to be in this year? Hopefully, but possibly not. Things are very hectic right now to say the least. Yeah it's Christmas time which always makes my wife depressed.. so there's that. Things are also stressful at work because it's the rush season right now. On top of that I am currently looking for a job in the UK because we're going to move there within the next couple of months or sooner. At least that's plan. That's why I felt the need to give my website a make-over.. well.. that and the fact that it was about time it got a make-over. Anyway. I'm stressed and as such, my blog will probably continue to be a bit inactive for a couple of weeks.

That's all for now, Goodnight and sweet lucid dreaming.

A Tiny Little Concept

A posted some concept pictures of an XBMC Skin I'm for now calling 'Offset', for lack of a more clever name. The pictures are on my flickr account where I go by the name fiinix. If you can find me, consider the pictures your well-earned reward. That's all for now. Bye.

Code Twice, Upload Thrice

And so the time has finally come to launch the recode and well.. obviously.. redesign of fiinixdesign.eu. Internally I'm calling this one "volume 15" but it's more in the region of # 37 at least. But probably even more than that, I lost count a few years ago when I switched from calling them "version" to "volume". Anyway, that's not why you are here, so without any further ado / I have a lot to do today and for the not so distant future so don't expect things to get more active here. Yeah, I know, I know.. you're getting all emotional about it but you're just going to have to make do for now and hopefully as things calm down a bit I can get more active at blogging (not a proper verb I know) again.

So yeah, until then. Feel free to check out my redesign and as always, comments are more than welcomed unless they're crappy, in which I will obviously pretend you're not there.

 Until then, don't do anything I wouldn't do.

I uploaded it three times, because I kept forgetting a analytics tracker!

Indie Game Music Bundle

Do, seriously check this out, it's the Indie Game Music Bundle. Pay $1 or more and get 10 albums. Pay $10 or more and you get 7 more bonus albums. Only today though, so quickly quickly! There's some really awesome soundtracks there. No Bastion though, which made me a little sad, but it's still quite a bang for buck!


I already own two of the soundtracks, but I couldn't resist. I'm still a dirty dirty pirate, I just want to at the very least, try to support a concept that I very much approve of, which is to make it easier and more gratifying to buy something than it would be to download it illegally.

Measure Twice, Code Once

I'm rebuilding and redesigning my website, hence the lack of blogging. My coffee beans arrived today, I will "review" them later. I have another fun blind-study that I plan on doing as soon as I have the time. And I will of course, share more about my Idols audition experience. So yeah, I think that's it right now. Not a lot to read I know, but bear (Grrrr!).. bare with me. Until then.. let me delight your ear canals with the wonderful musings of Stephen Lynch, an oh so talented musician hailing from Abington.


Don't listen to this if you're easily offended.

Thanks But No

So yeah. I didn't make it through. That's that, I going to blog more about maybe tomorrow or something but right now I actually don't have the time to blog about it. But there's stories to share, and I will share them, I promise you that much..


I sang Accidents Can Happen by Sixx A.M. for those who are interested. I would embed it, but it was disabled for the official video so this one will have to do. But stay tuned for more stories and pictures.

A Looming Embarrassment

This Friday I am going to audition for Idols. I mentioned it briefly in Updates and a Pumpkin and because.. well.. I have no shame I suppose I now doing it again. How will it go? What will I sing? Only time can tell. Well time.. and me.. since I have now decided what to sing.. but because I partly want to be sneaky and partly I am curious to see what the judges think first (assuming I get that far) I won't actually tell you what song it is just yet.


So yeah.. the whole "assuming I get that far" -part.. apparently one sings in front of some producers or something on the first day and then they decide right there if you get to sing in front of the judges and cameras the following day. Which basically means you might not get to see me on TV at all. Now you know that, so don't get our hopes up too much, there are a lot of very very talented people out there.. much more talented than I am at singing, but "Hey!".. I have to give it a shot don't I?


I sat for quite a while trying to figure out what to sing. First I figured that I should obviously sing something whilst playing guitar.. (day one of thinking).


Day two (of thinking). Oh.. I should sing one of my own songs.. sort of a double advertising for myself. Who knows.. if they don't like my singing they might like my songwriting.. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do.


Day two (1 ½ hours later). I finally decided.. on.. not singing any of my own songs.. and to not play guitar. So there we have it. Whichever way it goes I will let you know what I sang on Friday. And again, who knows maybe if I make it through you can watch it later in early 2012 when it airs. I won't be able to watch it because we don't have the possibility of receiving digital broadcasting signals. So what I'm saying is, would anyone mind recording it? If I do manage to get the judges and they do decide to air me singing.

That's it.. I'm done for the day. [insert clever catchphrase here]

Awaiting Shipment

I just ordered some Costa Rica Perla Negra, Natural Organic via UK and now I'm waiting in anticipation for what it's going to be like. I try to make a habit out of not reading reviews or cupping notes beforehand. That way I can try to feel what I think about the coffee first, before my opinion gets "tainted" by actual experts at cupping.


Yes, it's called cupping.. but not the boob kind if that's what you were thinking.. or maybe that's just me?


I'll let you know ones I have had a taste. If nothing else, it gets the award for longest name so far.


On a different note, I have had time to play a little Batman: Arkham City.. but not enough to make a judgement yet. At least the beginning was exciting and gripping, kudos to Rocksteady Studios for (at least in my humble opinion) surpassing themselves in regards to the "intro". Especially considering that the "intro" for Batman: Arkham Asylum was quite good too.. But "Damn!" the introduction for BAC was better. I can't wait for when I have an hour or two of spare time so that I can continue to explore this fenced of part of Gotham.


I was also thinking about making an, sort of, educational post about coffee. Less of my own opinions and more of facts oriented, the very basics of coffee so to speak.. a little history and whatnot. I could call it "Coffees of the World, part Three Deux" but I will probably call it something else.


Would anyone be interested in that?

The Freshness Conundrum

Sorry if I came of too much as an elitist asshole back in Jamaican Blue Meh by the way. Whilst I do stand by my opinions I could have probably expressed them more delicately. I haven't edited the earlier post and I won't because I feel that would be more hypocritical than just letting it stay there as a testament to a part of my sometimes less charming personality.. or more charming? Or something like that. Why bring it up now instead of three weeks ago? Well, because once again.. it's coffee time!

First things first though as this is probably one of those things I could have clearer and more delicate about. Coffee and the experience of drinking coffee is highly subjective. Wait.. not just highly.. it's just subjective. That's it. You're entitled to your opinion and I'm entitled to mine, no one can argue vice versa.. but.. and here's the little tiny minuscule but. There is still a difference in quality between what you might be drinking and what I might be drinking and we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking there isn't. Oh what the hell.. I'll make a metaphor.. because.. well.. I like doing metaphors..

Both of these cars will get you where you need to go. In which one do you think you will enjoy the ride more?

 

Again.. like I said.. both of those cars will get you where you need to go. And some people might even in all honesty prefer the first one (Juhla-Mokka type coffee) even after having tried the second one, and no one has the right to argue with that. You know what you like.. simple as that. But we should at least be able to agree that there is a significant difference in quality between the two. Or maybe that is part of the problem? To be able to agree to that, one would at the same time be, sort of, confessing that "Yes, what I like is sub-par to what you like on a general quality-scale". Why is that a bad thing?

I can confess that my (not metaphorical cars now, but real ones) favourite car of all time that I would like to own someday is a Volkswagen Type 2, T1 "Camper".

Now I am well aware that this is not quality. It just isn't. But I still absolutely love this one and would like to own one that I can then restore to awesome (subjective) condition. So there you go.. the "Camper" isn't better, in terms of quality, than the Mercedes Benz SL500.. but given a choice between the those two cars.. from those two pictures.. I would take the "Camper". Not because it's objectively better but because it's subjectively "better".

So in closing. What I am basically saying, is that I'm sorry I called the coffee you drink "grandma's armpit sweat". I have never tried any grandma's armpit sweat so I don't actually know what that tastes like and should have used a more fitting euphemism. You like.. well.. whatever coffee you might like and I like Genuine Antigua, Dark Roast, 30 sec bloom +  210 sec extraction.. and that's totally okay.. for both of us.

The Freshness Conundrum? Huh? Oh right.. I have realised that I can tell a difference between a three day roast and a 10 day roast. Which means that soon I am going to have to start roasting myself, so that I can maintain freshly roasted coffee. The prospect of this is both exciting and "a bummer" for the same reason; Things have only begun to get complex in terms of coffee making.

My wife apparently knew this day would come.

Have You Seen My Goblin?

If you haven't already seen my Goblin.. well, you will have by the end of this post. This is a project I actually started almost two years ago.. at least according to the date on the folder I created when I was searching the internet for inspiration. This is one of those inspirational pictures.

 

From this and some other pictures and the power of my awesome and huge brain I created.. well what you'll see down below. Which alas is not even finished yet but I did manage to get a little detail painting done yesterday. I was going to glue back one of the arms but we were all out of glue sticks.. damn it, so that will have to wait for another day. We (read: my wife) get through an insane amount of glue sticks.. I wonder if one could get sponsored by whoever makes those divine thermoplastic adhesives? Well.. Anyway. Here you go, two (very) WIP (work in progress) pictures of my goblin doll "Clem". He's supposed to become, once he's done, a shaman of some sort. Weighting in at 450 grams and standing 36 cm tall.

I'm actually very pleased with how he has turned out so far. The goal was to see if I could create much much more detailed hands, feet and head than before. Which I apparently totally can. And as usual, sculpted parts made from Sculpey III with an skeleton made from wire.

I still need to paint the eyes.. as soon as I can decide what eye-colour he should have.

The End of Tees

Last month I shared about how shotdeadinthehead.com wanted me to sign a Customer Design Suggestions Agreement in regards to my t-shirt designs. I of course sent them some follow-up questions I had. But first things first.. the agreement was pretty cut and dry in the end.. when I finally understood it, which was sort of my issue to begin with.. as I had difficulties understanding all of the technical law-terms. But the gist was pretty much this. They pay me a commission on every sold t-shirt, something they had been doing all along. They get the rights to my designs. If we ever part ways, they still pay me(?) and they designs are still theirs.

Now that last part irked me a bit since I was/am keen to retain the rights, if nothing else than at least get the rights back when they no longer sell my designs.

But in end, we (as in me and David from shotdeadinthehead.com) reached a mutual understanding where.. well.. my designs are no-longer for sale. For a couple of reasons actually, but I'm not really sure if it's okay that I divulge all of them out of respect to the other party.

So.. for now.. this is the end of tees. My t-shirts are no longer available for sale. It's a sad day for everyone I'm sure, as you all have come to love my awesome t-shirts and you might be wondering how you will survive without them. Well.. I would hate to be the bearer of bad news.. but you probably won't survive without them. Unless you hunt down the few people that have them... and kill them.

I wonder how many times people stumble on this blog whilst, well for example, looking for porn and instead find these rambling.. I wonder how many of those, don't actually understand that I'm being sarcastic.

Anyway. In the past 9 months and 13 days since I first started selling t-shirts I have sold a total of 48 t-shirts. That's like one t-shirt every 143th hours. So yes, it's a little sad that they are no longer selling them but at the same time this gives me an awesome opportunity to improve on the original designs, make them even better and then maybe sell them from some other place.

Until then.. oh how I wait for the day when I'm walking around somewhere and I suddenly see someone wearing a t-shirt that I designed.

The "Let the game begin" -design.

Goodnight and Sweet Dreams

Updates and a Pumpkin

So, yeah. In the same spirit as last year I keep insisting on not actually doing the Happy Halloween post until it actually is Halloween. But I ranted enough about it last year so I won't do it this time. Anyway. Not a lot of things to update you with this time I'm afraid. The missus and me had an (hopefully) awesome Halloween-themed party this Saturday. I got drunk enough to think I could stand on my hands.. which I of course can't. So I sprained my thumb or something. Needless to say, it hurts and I'm a little wiser.. a.k.a I know not to do that again, because well.. my motor skills aren't that great apparently. Anything else?

I have procured Batman: Arkham City some days ago too. I haven't had time to play it yet though so I'll have to get back to you when I have. But I am looking forward to it, and really want to try it soon, it's such a pain in the ass to avoid spoilers when roughly half of the websites I visit frequently are game-related. The other half being "stuff" (porn).

I'm also participating in Idols this year, because well.. they made it so east that I simply can't say no.. that and a friend asked me to join her. Also, how often will I get the chance to make an ass of myself on national TV?

That's it.. now go away! We're done here.. I have "stuff" to do..

Nah, I'm kidding.. I still have pictures to show you. This years pumpkin in all it's edited glory. Kudos to beije and his photography skills for the first picture in it's original state. I obviously added the pumpkin, which is why it looks to out of place.

Bow before your almighty ruler and king, Sir Pumps-a-lot!

Happy Effin' Halloween!

I am Batman!

Well.. obviously not. But I so totally could be.. if it wasn't for all the money he has, that I don't have. And the persistence to fight crime and injustice, whereas I am a bit more indifferent to that at times. Yeah, and also the upper body strength.. of which I have none. But if it weren't for those, and all the other various things—read Batcave—that he has and I don't, I could totally be Batman.

Although I could probably pull off an equally bad imitation of the "I am Batman!" -voice as Christian Bale's original bad imitation.. Or maybe I shouldn't judge so harshly. Don't get me wrong, I really really enjoyed Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, two films that thankfully did away with the campy humour and tried to portray a glimpse of the very deranged nature of someone who dresses up as bat. Many kudos to Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale for that. And obviously all the other people who participated in making it enjoyable to watch Batman again. Joel, you go back to your corner of shame.. you really ruined it for everyone.

 But despite the fact that I really liked the new Batman films (as well as some of the older—Tim Burton—ones) I can not get over the fact that the gravely voice Mr. Bale did just feels.. well.. a bit wrong.. a bit, well.. I was expecting him to start coughing at any second and excuse himself to blow his batnose or something. Kevin Conroy is still, in my humble mind, the one and only Batman voice.

Speaking of.. I really want to buy Batman: Arkham City, it came out last Friday and I had totally forgotten about it. I must have it. Soooooon.

Jamaican Blue Meh

Expanding my horizons and consequentially my world map of coffees I recently had the utmost pleasure as well as the "meh" experience of drinking two new coffee beans that was not in my original "Coffees of the World" -series. Links here, here and here.. for those that either don't know what the hell I'm talking about or those of you who just want to have their memory refreshed.

Since I started that journey I have not been able to look back, nor would I want too. I can't fathom drinking the piss-poor excuse we (Finnish people) usually have as coffee any more. I just can't. It's a bit odd though if you think about it since we (Finnish people again) annually according to studies drink the most coffee per capita. We're beating Norway for the first place with our 12,0 kg per year versus their 9,9 kg. By comparison USA only drinks 4,2 kg (27th place) annually and in the UK they drink a measly 2,8 kg per year and thus place themselves 47th on the list. So yeah.. we consume the most coffee in the world, yet most of them—excluding myself on this one—drink the equivalent of your grandma's armpit sweat. They drink the extract from that thing that you get stuck between your toes when you have worn your socks for too long. I just realised that there's probably fetish-sites for both those things, but I'm too scared of searching on Google to find out.

Seriously, all the metaphors aside.. they drink..quite simply.. inferior coffee. Why? But I shouldn't paint the devil on the wall too much now, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon. By simply observing the increasing selection of coffees in the supermarket, it is noticeable that people are buying more "exotic" brands, not just the pre-ground *cough Juhla Mokka cough*. Obviously I say "exotic" because they are not that much more fancy but "Hey", you gotta start somewhere I suppose.

Holy shit I sound the like the biggest douche ever. Or something like that, maybe.. Point being, by all means, feel free to drink whatever you like the most and I won't judge you any more then you judge me. Fine if you really.. (really?) like pre-ground store bought coffee. Who am I to say you shouldn't, simply because I couldn't any more. But just don't fool yourself into thinking it's good coffee, it just isn't. But it's okay to like "less-than-good" coffee and it obviously doesn't make you into a worse person for that. As long as you don't try to make me drink it of course, in which case I'll berate you for 30 minutes.

Anyway, enough about that now. I was going to to tell you about my pleasure and "meh".

 Today, I had a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain [LK]. For those of you that have no clue what that is—I pity you—let me fill you in quickly with this copy-paste quote from it's Wikipedia link;

"Over the last several decades, this coffee has developed a reputation that has made it one of the most expensive and sought-after coffees in the world".

So there you go. The verdict; With low acidity and an okay smoothness to it, it's by no means a bad coffee. A clear wooden sort of texture and taste to it. But also quite "meh", as in not particularly awesome either means I also didn't think this was a good coffee. Will have it again? Of course, I can't base everything on just one cup, even though I'm doing that now. Besides I still have 80 more grams of it, and I do plan to get the most out it. If I change my mind and raise or lower it's score, I will let you all know. But for now, the famous Jamaican Blue Mountain is just going to have to settle for a 3+.

The other one I have tried recently, that was originally a surprise for myself, is Genuine Antigua, Dark Roast [RV]. How does one surprise oneself? Simple. I just picked a random jar of beans and decided to go with that. Well, lucky me as it turned out that I had just discovered a new favourite, with plenty of aromas of chocolate and other stuff I can't quite put my finger on yet, this is a definitive 5. I am also thinking about making this my "Roast my own beans" -bean. Well, at least my first bean as I am sure I will have more at some point. But I have been looking for the bean will get to take my roasting virginity, and I think this one is it. I seriously loved everything about this bean.

So yeah. I think that's it for now. Next on my "to-drink" -list is Kopi Luwak, the famous poop-coffee. So stay tuned for that, whenever it may be.

The Afterlife Is a Harsh Mistress

or "How I realised there's lot of games I have to play". Examining some of my earlier posts, for instance this one, dating as far back as May, 2010 I realised that there's actually quite a number of games of my "to-play" -list that I still haven't gotten around to. Although in the "Games, I'm eagerly awaiting.." I have played two of those. And sort of reviewed them too. Here's the one for Fable III, and here I talked about Halo: Reach. But I will be the first to admit that the one for Halo: Reach has almost not even a review, at least in comparison to proper real reviews. Good thing I'm not comparing myself then.

Anyway. So yeah.. what about the other two games on that previously mentioned list of mine?, I pretend you ask. Well.. Batman: Arkham City is coming out next weekend, and my bat-penis is still very stiff about that. I have given it some thought as to whether I should buy it right away, or not, but I haven't decided yet. And as for Fallout: New Vegas I promised myself I would wait until they release an edition that contains all the DLC's and since that hasn't happened yet.. I'm still waiting. For good reasons though as they just released the final DLC "Lonesome Road" a couple of weeks ago or so, so maybe I'm coming to the end of my waiting.

Of course there's been other games along the road as well. Such as Alice: Madness Returns, which I really should try to acquire. Then there was Dead Island that gave me a raging zomboner™ (zombie boner, pay royalties every time you use it) but failed to live up to its own trailer. Now, don't get me wrong, the game as it stands seems to be quite good. But I was hoping for an emotional survival story about a family torn apart by the outbreak of zombies.. or something like that. And unfortunately in all it's 4-player-co-op-melee-fest glory, Dead Island was not what I hoped and wanted when I first saw the announcement trailer. Which is too bad, because if someone makes that game, I will shower them in all my hard earned money. Or well.. at least the appropriate retail amount.

This brings me nicely to LIMBO, released originally on Xbox Live Arcade in 2010 and then later for Windows and PS3. Here, do yourself a favour and go buy it on Steam right away. It's fucking worth it just to consume your hard-drive space. I was eager to play this and since I realised how many games I had been waiting for, yet not played yet, this is where I started. Limbo is awesome! It's creepy.. it's scary and unfamiliar. It teaches you the ropes through failure.. hard, deadly failure in it's gruesomest form. Although I actually had a chuckle at one of my many deaths. And not to spoil anything but I will tell you about this death of mine.

In my path was a stone-block of sort hanging mid-air. On the ground under that block there was a semi-clearly marked protrusion indicated a button of sort, and yes, sure enough, the idea was that I had to jump on top of that button so that the stone-block wouldn't fall down and brutally murder me. Took me two deaths to figure that out. Managing to not get myself killed I pranced onwards with my journey only to notice an identical looking contraption ahead. Same looking stone-block. Same protrusion on the ground. So I of course pranced in my merriness and proceeded to jump on to the button. Only to have to stone-block come rushing down and brutally murdering me. Haha, Limbo, you get me good there! Turns out.. First stone-block, jump ON button to avoid certain doom. Second stone-block, DON'T jump on button to avoid certain doom. Pretty sneaky of them. But it exemplifies Limbo perfectly. Because the entire world you are in, is out to murder you as much as it can. No puzzle is exactly the same, so don't expect things to get predictable. The only thing you can know with absolute certainty is that if it doesn't get you murdered the first time, it will keep on coming until it does.

LIMBO gets 5 shit-stained underpants out of 5. Check out the in-game teaser if you don't believe me.

Permission Required

So. Sometimes I get these weird ideas to challenge myself. Sometimes it out of sheer boredom.. other times I feel stagnated in my creativity and forcing myself to be creative under pressure forces me to not censor myself as much. A sort of "Go with the flow" type of thinking I suppose.. or something, let's not get too deep and thinky. Usually the result is sub-par at best, in other words, not something I would post generally speaking. But. And it's a big butt.. I figured that maybe I should, with the whole not censoring myself in mind and all. And since I did get permission from the motif himself, I had even more reasons to post this.

So here goes. I challenged myself to dust of my Wacom Graphire 4XL and do a portrait of a friend with a size of 50x70cm @ 300 dpi. I only got to use two base colors (sort of). And after 45 minutes I had to stop, regardless of what it looked like. I do generally like to work quickly anyway, but 45 minutes for a portrait at a time when I haven't done anything like that in months, maybe even years, is quite a challenge. Not being able to correct any mistakes I might discover after the time has expired, was even more difficult.

Many thanks to beije, whom so graciously "volunteered" for this little experiment. Once I get the hang of this I promise I will do a better portrait, one that does you justice. Instead of one where you have creepy teeth. So, what I'm trying to say is "I'm sorry 'bout the creepy teeth, I'll do better next time".

Before.

After.

Freudman

I don't really have anything to say at the moment. So I figured I would enlighten your Friday with a Freudman.. trademark pending.. Let's not make this a regular thing though, I know how you all hate it when I start repeating myself.. and I'm not a fan of that either so it's cool with me.

Inflammable!

So in light of yesterdays promise, I thought (for a change) I would actually keep that promise. Here's a picture of yesterdays t-shirt project. The design is from the maybe to-be card "Inflammable!"—or Flammable!.. I haven't apparently decided yet—from my board game project "Island of Eternity". What?

Oh, yeah, I'm still working on that, with "creative" breaks here and there. At this point it does seem a bit ironic that I have (almost) always called it "Island of Eternity", for well.. for obvious reasons. This November it will have been in development for 4 years. Hmm.. maybe at some point I could do "Where it all started" for IoE? Who knows, someone might find it interested to see how it's evolved as time has gone by? Or maybe I'm just deluding myself?

Either way.. until then (whenever that may be) here's the picture I promised. Pretty awesome ye? Somehow it lends itself quite nicely to be put on a t-shirt.. merchandise possibilities perhaps? But for another day obviously.

I Was Totally Going To

I was totally going to blog about the awesome t-shirt I made earlier today. But I got too tired and I have to get up early tomorrow to go to work.. like every weekday I suppose, but still. So what this all mean for my many fans.. (all six of you) Well, obviously.. there won't be a picture in this post. But I'll try my best get one up tomorrow. On a completly different note, I also played a little Minecraft again today. I finally got OpenGL 2.0+ to work on my stationary computer. Earlier I only had 1.0, or something like that. Anyway.. point being. I couldn't play Minecraft before on my main computer, but now I can.. And it's even awesomeR with a capital R than I remembered. But for now and until another day. Good night..

So yeah.. I know I was totally going to, but I won't.

Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites

Dubstep.. Something I can listen to and like, because.. let's face it, it goes nicely with my brain. But this, is just really really cool. Reminds me again, that upon hearing Dubstep properly for the first time, my fifth thought was "hmm.. how could I do this with an acoustic guitar?". Well, Pinn Panelle gets closer to that then I have so far, so κῦδος (glory) to them. I found it to be mighty impressive.

Magic 45

Woot woot! I have no sold 18 more tees. That makes the total a whopping 45 and brings me a couple of steps closer to that million I was talking about earlier. But no sun without a little rain. Now they need me to sign a Customer Design Suggestions Agreement, which seems (at least to my untrained mind) a bit foggy on the design rights area (which I wish to retain).. So, I'm going to have to think it over for a couple of days before I decide anything. If I don't sign it, my design will no longer be for sale at shotdeadinthehead.com, which would be a bit sad.

I'll probably let all (five) of you know what I decide. Obviously I might just be be my stupidity and everything is in the agreement, in black and white, clear as day.. but my inner sceptic is saying "this smells fishy..", and I have learned to trust in him even though he's wrong from times to times, because so far the statistics are still in his favour. But until clarity has been achieved here's.. again (yeah I know) the list of all my designs.. feel free to feed me by buying one (or fifty). But even if you don't where still awesome friends, so it's cool.

EDIT: Apparently some of the designs are already not available any more. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm going to see if I can find out why.

Freddy Krueger
Chucky
Alien/Xenomorph
Ghostface
Hannibal
Jason Vorhees
Bruce (Shark(s) from JAWS films...)
Billy (Puppet from the SAW films.. John Kramer is called Jigsaw, the puppet isn't)
Leatherface
Michael Myers
Pennywise
Pinhead
Predator

Three Point One

For the impending deployment of version three point one I thought I would post some info here, as well as a link to the flickr set featuring all the latest and greatest screen shots of the web page. Go there why don't you, they're all in glorious 1280x720.. no cropping, no down-scaling.. in awesome 1:1 size. Enjoy!

Fixes
- Power Play % Algorithm corrected due to false inflation. Hover on stat for breakdown
- Rank classes simplified for better contrast. E.g. IV-A changed to insignia symbol
- "Ranks & Trophies" screen updated to reflect insignia instead of IV-A
- Passing % is calculated from ONE value only. Change from NHL 11 to NHL 12
- "Add Match" screen streamlined (too cluttered). Re-organised according to changes in NHL 12
- Added "exit;" clause to remove false error when adding match
- 1 vs 1 Stats. Adjusted background for symmetry

Features
- Recent games added
- 1 vs 1 Recent Games added
- Season 2009-2010 Comparison added
- Penalty Kill % stat, hover on stat for breakdown
- Shooting % stat
- Goals Against stat
- Back of card. Hover on "Games Played" for breakdown of number of games Home/Away
- A Brief History of NHL Stats. Gallery of previous versions of NHL Stats
- Surprise Feature (Card styles Modern/Vintage)
- Surprise Feature (4th Trophy Level for all trophies; Diamond Mask, Diamond Trophy & Diamond Whistle)

Skipped
- Rank Progression Chart, don't quite know how to do this one yet.

The Jersey (WIP)

I have managed to get some work done on update 3.1 on our NHL Stats web page. I have just gotten Recent Games coded, so now that's working. Nothing is online yet obviously but I'll be sure to post an update when it is.

So what else is new? A couple of friends went a bit overboard with our NHL stuff.. and ordered Authentic NHL Jerseys from USA for over 200€.. To not be worse than them I figured.. hmm? Surely I can do something of roughly equal awesomeness for 20€.. So a quick stop at my local H&M store later I had a long sleeved t-shirt .. and slightly later still.. transfer paper to print on.. And as it turns out, yeah you can totally make some of almost equal awesomeness for roughly 20€. Sure, mine hasn't got an embroided logo on the front, but I don't mind that.. especially not at a 10th of the price.

Pics or didn't happen? Yupp, sure thing, as soon as it's done.. which it isn't.. not quite yet at least, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little longer.

Time To Kick Some Ass

A) Because, this is a pretty kick ass song!

B) Because a dear friend of mine is in. Way to go Stein!

C) Also free advertisement for the Norwegian band BULK

D) Enjoy!

People Love My Stuff!

Some time ago.. like over two years ago, I made some movie genre posters. Mostly because at the time there weren't any. I had/have XBMC running on an old Xbox 1 as my main source of awesome entertainment in the living room and decided that I wanted to have my movies sorted according to genres. So yeah, at the time there weren't any, because apparently people hadn't felt that need.. or some other reason.

So what did I do? Well obviously I made my own genre posters, figuring that at the very least than I could make them look like whatever I desired. And "The Reel, Movie Genre Posters" where born. I came up with that name recently, catchy isn't it? At that time I was quite an active member of the forum at xbmc.org so I happen to stumble upon someone asking about movie genre posters, some time after I had made them. I quickly posted a picture of them, wondering it they had something like this in mind? And suddenly a whole bunch of people started asking where I got those, and how they could get them too. Well, since I am a big fan of sharing.. I still am. I gave them what I had, which at that time was 15—in my mind "okay" looking posters—they loved them, apparently.

Encouraged by this I started thinking how I could improve them, since I had never made them for anyone but myself to begin with. I still remember playing around with some ideas in Photoshop using slightly differently styled film reel frames. It all felt a bit lacking. Then I started playing around with a more black and white look, thinking that it would be able to fit better with all the different skins that were available to XBMC.

 So yeah.. my first experiment with less coloured ones looked like this, pretty crappy ey? I didn't like the text there, because it constricted the posters to English, but at the same time they seemed a bit lacking such a small picture. But at least I was getting closer. Then it hit me! Silhouettes, silhouettes would be very symbolic and also speak to people on a more primal level, no need for any text, the images themselves would say all that needed to be said.

And so, "The Silhouettes" were born. Again, catchy isn't it?

 And this is what they looked like.. all 69 (current amount) of them. Yeah, I went a bit over-board and made significantly more of them this time, so there would be enough for most of the genres that exist. They were very well received and as such are now very much a part of many XBMC skins by default, which I think is totally awesome and I fully support it. Actually I think almost all the major skins for XBMC nowadays has my posters as default, if not The Silhouettes, they usually have The Reels. Which I made a template for and "digitalhigh", another member at XBMC forum expanded on my original concept of measly 15 posters, to the much better amount of 42. Kudos to you "digitalhigh"!

So.. if this was over two years ago, why talk about it now?

Because, not only do these posters have a wonderful home at XBMC.. They are more and more becoming the standard—to this day, I haven't seen any other genre posters other than the ones I have designed—in other media centers too. Which is just freaking unbelievable.. in an awesome way. As of September the 24th, my posters now officially have a home at mediaportal too. You can read about in the post "The Future is Here!". My name is totally in the article. So yeah, that's why I'm talking about it now, to shamelessly plug my own awesome-ness.

Interestingly enough, people still seem to like The Reels as much as they like The Silhouettes, which to me is a little odd though. Mostly because The Reels still feel a little like that weird cousin one is ashamed of, whilst The Silhouettes are my proud offspring.

Different strokes I suppose, but I'm still greatly honoured that they are so appreciated.

The Process

So, the missus liked her book(s).. a lot.. unless she's lying of course. But for the sake of this post I'm going to assume she isn't. So yeah, surprise! She got "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde, inspired by the the first edition, first printing of 1891. It's her favourite fictional book.. ever.

In that book, Dorian receives a book by Sir Henry Wotton.. allegedly—according to Oscar Wilde himself in his trial—that particular book is "À rebours" by J.-K. Huysmans, 1884. So naturally because I did tell you was going to put a book in her book.. dawg. I re-created "À rebours" as well. And based it on the first edition, first printing of that one as well.

Here's a huge picture of the basic progress because.. well you know the old saying, "A picture is worth more than a thousand words".. well.. Here's 9000 words for you. Not including the preface. My apologies for the final picture being kind of blurry and crappy.


Editors (still me) note: Yes, The Picture of Dorian Gray was technically first published in 20 June 1890, in the July issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. But, that one doesn't really have a book cover—so to speak—to base anything on, so I went with the first edition, first printing instead. However the book itself is still the 13 chapter non-revised edition. Not the 20 chapter edited for less homo-eroticism. So there. Enjoy the picture(s).
 

Often and Shorter

Some time ago I had the lucky accident of buying single blade disposable razor blades, which I then obviously blogged about. Upon having blogged—you can shut up now Firefox, I get that "blogged" is not a proper verb, deal with it—about the aforementioned items I actually received some feedback and such, not here, but at "other" places—"other" being Facebook I am a little ashamed to admit, anyway...—where someone suggested that I could just as well boil my blades a little bit, no need to rinse them in alcohol.

So now today, I thought "Hey, I'm actually going to try that!". I mean, let's face it.. I am a cheap bastard and whenever I can cut corners on non-essentials, like for instance razor blades or proper sleep, I will gladly and haphazardly try out all sorts of things. That came out a little wrong but I trust you know what I mean. So obviously I boiled some razor blades when I got home from work. Umm.. yeah.. it didn't really work as awesomely as I had hoped. Who would have guessed that plastic, kind of melts and bends when exposed to high enough temperature? Oh, everyone?! Well I hadn't given that any thought at all. At least they made for a good laugh between me and the missus, who was a bit sceptical at the idea to begin with.

On a completely different note I have now also procured the last item required to make my Acoustic Stomp Box. So I suppose I really don't have any more excuses as to why I shouldn't finish it now. Damn it. Maybe that should the my little project for the day? Finish the Box so that I can disturb the neighbours in an entirely new way, like they don't get enough of the singing/guitar/ukulele/harmonica combo. Anyway. I thought I would keep this one short(er) for a change. Often and shorter will be my new blog motto.. that or.. well.. not.

Don't Tell My Wife

My wife's birthday is coming up soon, and last year I felt a bit short on the whole present-giving. To be perfectly honest I can't even remember what I gave her—then again–neither can she so I suppose that's okay. But with that in mind I had a moment of clarity a couple of weeks ago, an epiphany if you will. The awesome-est birthday present ever! A present to make all the other presents feel inadequate and like they should not have let themselves go like that and maybe work out a bit more often or at least not eat so unhealthy all the time. As you might have already noticed I am quite pleased with myself this year. And not to blow my own phallic symbol too much but I should be, it is really that awesome. And the best part, is that I decided to go all meta on her ass... yeah, I thought that sounded weird too. Then again, saying "yo dawg, I heard you like books so I put a book in yo' book, so you can read while you read!" would sound weird too...

Actually, that wasn't so bad. Damn it. Either way, neither of them makes a lot of sense right now, but they will in a couple of days when all is revealed. Since she might read this I won't spoil it yet—which means—you and her will have to wait a little more.

Obviously she getting a book, that's not the secret. Neither is which book she's getting, because well you.. it's kind of pictured down below. It's everything that comes after and before that, that is the secret. Pretty sneaky ey?

Post-Launch

So now it's been a week and a day since the launch of our new NHL Stats web page. And except for a minor bug where it insists that "You have missed one or more fields" when you add a match everything has been pretty smooth sailing. Why do I call that a minor bug I pretend you ask? Well, because it still adds a match to the database every time, so obviously I have just missed something in the echo loop. But I can get it fixed at the same time I do the update to the web page. Since it's not feature-complete anyway.. We suffered a mild case of premature launchulation. And like I already said, a couple of more features to come, some bug fixing, some minor cosmetic changes based on feedback but then that's it. I shouldn't have to do anything after that.. hopefully. Since a dear friend of mine—Ted Bundy—wanted me to make a post about how the launch party went, I thought I would do just that, right now.

Basically our plan for the weekend was pretty simple. Mr. Cruise would get of work at 19.00, so we would meet up shortly after that and start drinking and playing NHL12. Oh if things were only so easy, by 18.55 it was raining on a Biblical scale—I'm exaggerating for effect, but it was pretty bad—so much so, that there was no way in [insert religious place of punishment in the afterlife] that any of us were going to walk. Luckily for us though, we had more people joining our little get-together, so a semi-coordinated car ride later we had all arrived at Mr. Cruise's place. At this point the story gets significantly shorter since there was alcohol involved and my memory is a bit impaired by the second day.

Needless to say, the launch went very well. Everyone really liked the web page although some had some minor suggestions, but nothing major or life-changing. I really wanted to celebrate having spent the majority of my vacation building the 'effin thing, so I brought a bottle of champagne.. figuring no one else would have thought of that. Turns out I was wrong because Mr. Sock had also had the same idea.. my bottle was bigger than his though. But the gesture was appreciated either way. So thanks for that. We had arranged to have two displays and two Xboxes so four people could play at the same time. And well.. we all just got shit-faced and played NHL12. I want to remember there was some Lips being played too, at a later point but I can't remember which day that was.

You see, we partied until something like 4 or 5 in the morning, then we slept a couple of hours and woke up to; Mr. Cruise having a blood-alcohol content of 3,0‰ and a wounded eye-lid, Mr. Sock had 1,2‰ and I had 0,55‰. They claim it's because I drank the least, which is definitely true since I ended my evening with a couple of liters of water because I was already drunk enough. But I still want to add that my liver is better than your liver.. and "No.. you can't train your liver." But after that I made some "espresso" whilst someone else—I think—made some regular filtered coffee. And after we had had some coffee in us, we all just opened the first morning beer and thus the impaireth memorieth beginneth.

We all had—at least I hope—a lot of fun and come Sunday, damn I was tired. Not so much hungover though which is/was nice.

And after nine days of stats—not all of those days played obviously—our total games are now at 74 with total goals made 435. You can pretty clearly make out the rest of the stats in the screenshots down below, so I won't point out how bad I am. At least my win ratio is one percentage point higher than last season's .25.

Why So Secretive?

Well.. it's been a while since I have posted anything now and some of you might be wondering why? Well, you can all stop wondering now. Yeah, sure I have had a four week vacation, that just ended. And well sure.. one would think that with all that time on my hands I should have been able to squeeze out at least a couple of posts.

But no, here I am.. Two and a half weeks since my last post. So why have I been so busy. Well. Me and some friends like to get together and play NHL on Xbox 360 every now and then.. and well, we are all (to some degree) sucker for statistics. So it makes a lot of sense that we used to have an excel file to keep track of our individual stats.

We called it NHL Stats v. 2.0.. this was about a year ago, coincidently around the same time that I made a joke about how version 3 should be a web-interface with a sql database as backend. So.. I'm guessing you have probably already figured out what happened next. Well.. come spring and summer we started talking having a launch party in honour of NHL 12.. and of course Mr. Cruise (yeah, I'm going call him that now) remembered my little joke from last year. We quickly realised that Microsoft's Excel just wasn't going to cut it any more.. mostly because our little group had changed a lot since we first made the excel file, some people simply didn't play as much any more, whilst others whom had been more absent earlier were now frequently joining our gaming nights. So things needed to change whichever way we were going to go. So there I was with my big mouth again, "Well, I have been dying for an excuse to learn SQL anyway!". Yeah.. I didn't actually know any SQL before I started this project, but that's never really stopped me before so..

Still to do, before it's completely done. "View all matches as table data", "Modify how passing is calculated, because apparently those fuckers at EA Canada changed it from NHL 11 to NHL 12 and I just found out about it", "View all players as table data", "View player rank progression over time". But that's about it.

Anyway. Enough talk, you didn't come here after all this time to read my rambling. You came here hoping to see some glory shots.. and trust, there will be glory shots.. and by God, they are glorious. I am really pleased with how everything turned out. And many, many thanks to Beije for always kindly answering my sometimes odd questions about database management. And to Timo, who has had as much a part in this project even though he didn't code it.. or did the design. But Timo knows hockey.. which I don't as much, and many great ideas that you see here came from his mouth and mind first, then we both just fine-tuned it.. and tweaked it.. until it was awesome! Although I have to give him credit when he solved my issue of not being able to access multidimensional arrays in a SELECT statement.

EDIT: Also big thanks to Dan who so graciously provided hosting again. It's awesome mate, so thanks!

But now.. seriously.. no more talking.. it's picture time! And first, a picture of where it all started.. a long, long time.. I give you. Version 1.0

The Sepia tone has not been added later, for some reason we made it look like this.

Then there was version 2.0. The one that was pretty to look at but difficult to add players to.

Version 3.0 a.k.a. Project Creampie. Because I'm a pervert. This the main-page.

Main page..with the cards flipped for more stats

The next group of players slide in..

Someone missed a field when trying to add a match. Don't worry, all incorrect field are highlighted.

Much better.. Now if you only hadn't lost.

The cards are auto-sorted according to who played most recently.

It's also possible to see how you compare to a player with just the games between you two.

All the stats are re-calulated according to just your games. With the exception of rank title and class.

Again.. flippable cards here too.

By going to the RANKS & TROPHIES Menu you get a good overview of the possibilities out there

It's easier to add a new player than it is to change your privacy settings on Facebook.com

Feedback message so you know that what you did went well.

You can freely edit a player as well. In case you ever decide to change your default team colour..or something.

Here, I have changed my team to Nashville Predators instead, to show you how the card changes accordingly.

At some point, there will be a new NHL game.. and when that happens. We'll just add it here.

The dots turn into UP or DOWN arrow icons depending on if your recent stats improves or declines.

Once you have earned a trophy you can hover to see why.