Another year over and a new ones just begun (Well, almost)

I guess its that time of year again… time to reflect. What I’ve learned, what I *should* have learned, and what I thought I learned yet apparently didn’t.

Lets start with the basics, shall we? Snow sucks. It sucked when I was growing up, it still sucks now. It’s cold, it’s wet, and it fucks things up when you have to work in it. On a plus note though, it does create it’s own work, as I’d probably be bored as fuck at work if not for all the snow removal we get to go through now.

Next up, agreeing to projects without payment in advance. Yeah, I thought I had learned about that earlier in the year, when we had to wait from July 10th (when a price was agreed to) until November 7th (when we actually got paid, after months of “its on it’s way” “its in the mail” “We’ll get it to you tomorrow”) for our last payment, but stupidly I agreed to take on a smaller project from the same people (within days of our company finally being paid) at an agreed to price of $150. This was November 4th. I kept my end of the deal, and delivered to them what was requested. Did I get paid? Not yet, I haven’t. Same excuses as we got before, of course… except for an added bonus. They actually sent me a cheque just before Christmas for the full ammount. And the funny, it bounced worse than a rubber ball. That led to me getting fed the line “We’ll have it to you by Christmas, promise”. Uh huh. You may have noticed that Christmas has come and gone, and I just recently got another email saying that it’ll be in my bank account tomorrow. Funny how I get replies to my money requests ONLY when they have problems with their email. Now, I’m not going to name names here, because that would just be cruel, but I will point out that these people are supposed to be running a “Major” awards show… something that will obviously cost into the tens of thousands… yet they won’t pay their own bills for months at a time? There have been rumours that last years show hasn’t even been fully paid off yet… so I wonder where the sponsor fees are going this year? Again, not gonna name names… of course, it wouldn’t be OVERLY difficult to track down who it is, if you are so interested. To summerize… if you have no intention of actually paying someone for work when you say you are going to, don’t waste that person’s time. Especially if that person has control of a series of buttons that can do terribly nasty things to your website and email hosting. You know, just as a suggestion. 😉

Something else I learned… well, I kind of already knew it, but it’s most definately been confirmed without any shadow of a doubt. UK Rock Bands are awesome. Those of you who have not yet checked out Mendella (who played at our annual Gaming LAN Tournament in August), WHY HAVEN’T YOU??? Tom, Jay, Toby, Sam, Lewis, Luke, Dave (Dad), and Jo (Mom) are absolutely amazing people, and it was an honour and priviledge to host their visit to BC in August… I can not wait to work with them again, or even just visit with them.They’re playing a New Years eve show in Barnstaple UK, so if you are anywhere near there, you better damn well go to the show!

And more. SIGGRAPH rocks.The Vancouver Chapter recently hosted a charity event… all proceeds went towards the food bank. The actual event featured a World Premiere screening of “The Tale Of Despereaux”, over a full week before it was actually shown in theatres. Now, how cool is that? You can read Tami’s review of it atVillage Gamer (yeah, that’s right, I’m lazy… she’s so good at writing, that I could never top it anyway). I’ve been a member of SIGGRAPH for a while, and their events always amaze me, be it the films they show, the speakers they bring in, or just the way they support the industry as a whole. The gaming and movie industry in Vancouver is huge, and SIGGRAPH is always managing to bring in the big names to dazzle us.

Whuzzis? You’re still here? Wow… you must be bored. Anyway, that’s a pretty quick summery of some of the things I learned through 2008… at least half of which I hope to carry on through 2009. I’m certain that there were many more things that I “learned”, but they were likely so common that everyone else in the World already knew it, and I was just slow to figuring it out. So, now that you’ve made it to the end of this little clip, I can feel good knowing that I actually added some content to this graveyard, and can go downstairs to get a drink.

Thanks for visiting, and come back soon. 🙂