A Blog?

So, I decided to get into this trend of blogging. It may last for a while, it may not, but while it lasts, I'll post tidbits of my life, mostly stuff people will actually be interested in, like my graphic design work.

I suppose I should introduce myself. The name's Allan, I'm 17.375 years old (at the time of posting), and I was born in Sudbury, Ontario on Monday, June 3rd, 1991 at 6:53 AM (EST). My last name is Ukrainian, although the majority of my heritage is Russian (my mom's side). I'll post a (goofy) picture of myself that I paused my writing process to take to save myself some effort trying to describe myself.

So there you have it, that's me. So other than an appearance, I do have hobbies, likes, dislikes, and the other usual stuff that people tend to have.

Gaming

I'm a fairly average gamer (not quite casual, not quite hardcore) and I do spend a good portion of my time playing with my friends over Xbox Live/the internet. I grew up as as big of a Nintendo fanboy as humanly possible, but in the last two years I've shifted to just a general gamer. My favorite game since that shift is Team Fortress 2 (PC), a game which consumes most of my free time.

I currently own a bottom-of-the-line gaming PC, a Wii, an Xbox 360, and a Nintendo DS. Oh, and my older systems: a Gameboy Color, a couple Gameboy Advances, a Super Nintendo and a Playstation 2.

I got into gaming as a kid because of my dad and his Super Nintendo (which I inherited) and the game 'Top Gear' (and others like Super Mario RPG, which is still one of my all time favorites). The first system I personally owned was a Gameboy Pocket, which I got as a gift for my 9th brithday. Eventually, my mom smashed it, and bought me a Gameboy Color, and the new 'Pokemon Red Version', which sky rocketed my interest for gaming (mostly Pokemon). Eventually, that lead to a Nintendo 64, Pokemon Stadium, and Super Smash Bros.. My new gaming obsession took off from there, especially thanks to me being at an age where I acutally owned things and got relevant gifts for my birthday and Christmas. I now sit in a room where I have well over a thousand dollars worth in systems and games.

I suppose since I mentioned my Nintendo fanboyism, that I'd quickly list what series I was (and in part, still am) interested in:

• - Kirby: my all-time favorite video game character, and even though all the games are similar, they're still awesome and fun.
• - Pokemon: trust me when I say that I used to be a huge Pokemon nerd, and that my Pokemon cards amass to a net worth of at least a thousand dollars (given $0.25 per common, $0.50 per uncommon, $1.00 per rare, and $2.50 per holographic).
• - The Legend of Zelda: my love for TLoZ was fueled from The Ocarina of Time, and hasn't been disappointed yet, although I tend to get bored of single player games nowadays.
  

No Mario? Nope. Although Super Mario World and Super Mario RPG are two of my favorite games, I mentioned that I'm not really a fan of single player games, especially long ones, and although I've owned Super Mario 64 on two different systems, I've yet to beat it once. Yes, it's sad, I know, but it seems that I play games too slowly, and while I'm playing an amazing game, the next big thing comes out and I immediately switch to that. Of course, I've beaten practically every Kirby game under the sun, and totaled over a thousand (!) hours combined in my Pokemon games... I guess it depends on what stage I am in life. Nowadays, I don't have a whole lot of time to beat single player games, but back in the day, I could sit and play Super Mario RPG for hours (even days). But enough of that, I'm not a hardcore gamer anyways, so I don't have to beat games to have fun (or so I like to tell myself).

Other Stuff

So now that I made a tl;dr post about gaming, I'll just bunch the rest of my life into one section.

Basically, I like making things, especially games. My plan in life is to become a game programmer, and so I've directed my studies in that course for some time now. I also enjoy making graphics in Photoshop (you can see my stuff on my deviantART page) and building things with LEGO. My LEGO hobby was mostly lost due to a lack of time, but I still have two fabrications that I keep on display in my room.

I currently live with my mom and my younger sister (14), while my dad moved out about half a year ago and is currently in Montreal, although is moving to England sometime in the next month. The family pets are a dog (Pluto) and a cat (Mittens). We used to have a rabbit (Velvet), but she passed away last winter.

I play both hockey and soccer, and am a huge hockey fan (go Avs!). I actually asked for digital cable and a sports pack as a birthday gift just to be able to watch every Avs game this year (so far I've watched all 5 they've played). I also like the Montreal Canadiens, mostly because of my dad. Heck, just like gaming, I like hockey (and soccer) because of my dad.

On to music, I kind of play electric guitar, but not too much (I don't own one, unlike the SNES, my dad kept his guitar). My favorite band is Rush, which I got to see live in Montreal last June for my birthday. Other bands I like include: Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, Priestess, Airbourne, U2, Sum 41, and DragonForce. I do like a lot of different songs from a lot of different artists/bands, and if you're really interested, you can check out my Last.fm profile (although 75% of my music I listen to is not tracked because I mostly listen on something called an MP3 player).

That's about it for me, and as you probably realized, nothing about movies. I like movies on occasion, I watch the big ones and like them, but I'm not really a fan of movies (kind of like single player games)... something about the level of interaction I suppose. Or I just ran out of time and am making up an excuse. Who knows?

But yeah, kudos to you if you actually read my whole post. ;)