Werloc

I was really scared when I saw how overwhelmingly impactful the topic of religion is in the United States. I've watched this Youtube video recently discussing LGBT and the conversation was completely derailed by Catholicism. Here in Lithuania, older generation is religious mostly, but I personally don't know anybody going to church on a Sunday. Although, Catholicism is really used as a scapegoat to hate on all of the minorities in the country, because people don't want to take accountability of their own hateful feelings/thoughts and choose to hide behind the 'Bible said so'... It's really annoying how you can be an absolute awful prick just because of your religious beliefs.

Wow, all of the Lithuanian points right now are just a gold, a silver, a bronze, a fourth place and an eleventh. Funny how five juries amount to 44 points But huge thanks to USA and @Olympian1010 with @dezbee2008 for this nice surprise

Ok, thank you Chile for the silver medal!!!

You know it's going to be another bad year when there are already no points from Italy, Moldova, Denmark and France Thank you to Brazil and Romania though!

Well, it's actually a word in Lithuanian with which we would refer to a Macedonian citizen - makedonas or makedonietis.

Gonna be more than 20 at the end of the day, i'm sure Though slight surprise with no points from Italy.

It was the first time that Lithuania has had a lead in TISC after our win nearly a decade ago Thank you @justony

I got my templates. I'm leaving home though for like 6-ish hours, but should be back in time for my lovely 3 A.M. timeslot

Well, Lithuanians today were quite slow, but we're in the top 20 I guess? Don't know what to expect from this season, to be honest. Probably going to be the Strolia show all over again. If Leščinskaitė didn't retire, we would have had a women's relay, our first one after Rasimovičiūtė's retirement. But alas, there'll only be three World cup level women from us, since junior Kresik is out as well and Urumova is not going to be quick enough to get below 150 points.

3 A.M. is literally the only time I have free time these days This voting space actually makes it possible for me to be there It's very often that I stay up to 2 or 3, because it's my time to chill and nobody contacts me for shit.

Well, it's been 10 years and of course it's the 20th edition of TISC that I'm going to completely miss every single minute of it for the first time Unless it's miraculously pushed to Sunday :S

I thought it was Vanagaitė that was going to qualify as the first Lithuanian Olympic rider

Realistically: Rūta Meilutytė - 100m Breaststroke Danas Rapšys - 200m / 400m Freestyle Mykolas Alekna - Discus Throw Laura Asadauskaitė - Modern Pentathlon Dominika Banevič - Breaking Donata Karalienė/Dovilė Rimkutė - Double Sculls Could have a fighting chance: Andrius Gudžius - Discus Throw Liveta Jasiūnaitė - Javelin Throw Edis Matusevičius - Javelin Throw Basketball 3x3 Men & Women Men's K2 500 Men's K4 500 Men's C2 500 Men's Pair (rowing) Women's Pair (rowing) Women's Single Sculls (rowing) Ieva Serapinaitė/Gintarė Venčkauskaitė - Modern Pentathlon Kotryna Teterevkova - 200m Breaststroke Yesssss, this is the likeliest chance for Lithuania to have their best Olympics of our lifetime, but Danas Rapšys needs to not get injured, Meilutytė needs to decide if she even participates. Modern Pentathlon is unpredictable, so Alekna, Banevič and our rowing duo look likeliest for medals, because they had very good results in multiple important championships leading up to the Olympic Games. We most often than not have medals in canoe sprint, so I had to put the guys there, our other rowing teams are strong enough to challenge. Basketball 3x3's won a couple of important tournaments and medalled at others, Gudžius, Jasiūnaitė and Matusevičius are a bit reliant on their competition underperforming, or them overperforming. Serapinaitė and Venčkauskaitė have a lot of credentials and have been at the top, but you never know with MP. Teterevkova showed promise with bronze at the Europeans, she started training at the US and has an amazing training partner now, so she might even improve more during the year.

Damn, I'm voting so late, going to be tough staying quiet

Finally, the retirement of Gabrielė Leščinskaitė was officially announced on our Biathlon social media. This is her first actual retirement, although she retired like 6 or 7 times before in her head, but was persuaded to come back every time

Goodbye super sprint, may you not be ever missed ever again.

Well, this is an interesting turn of events

Lithuania won a football match. That's it. That's the post. Seems that the impossible can become possible.

When I chose our song, I immediately got worried for its chances since I thought some people would prefer listening through Spotify So I appreciate this, I believe it's the fourth Lithuanian entry that's not on Spotify and sadly one of those is "Song About Love" by Leon Somov & Jazzu

Some brutal second round judging later and I'm down to 16. Top 2 seem immovable, anything can happen between 3 and 16 though.

Nah, Lithuania does not approve of a Spotify playlist, because that song is only on Youtube

With the amount of time that I don't have this month, I'd really wish the average song quality was a bit lower, so it would be easier to rank

Going to listen to Israeli song before I start round 2, of course

23 songs survived my first round of judging. I think this is the contest where I feel like I recognised the most artists & songs than ever before, so a slight disappointment, since that leaves less space for me to discover something new from all of these countries, but otherwise, quality seems to be present and it will be a tough judging effort. I might have a top 3, but 4-20 seems like a blur and I definitely need to listen more.

Some very important national funding as well, if you manage to place high enough.