Is job dissatisfaction truly a necessary part to any employment? The past few weeks, I have (for the first time, since entering this type of work when I was a teen) been starting to really dislike my job. Its seeming like every time something happens in a negative fashion, I am the one who egts lectured about it (whether I played a part or not), yet when things go well, there are few who actually notice or say anything in regards to it. The typical "negative is loudest" way of life at work, to sum it up.

I don’t want to be a "job hopper"… you know the type, who will work at one place just long enough to become annoyed with it, then suddenly quit and start looking for employment somewhere else. I have a good work history, and I want to keep it that way. Besides, with DSL coming, money will of course be welcome… and it flows a little better when you actually show up at your job in order to obtain the paycheck. I guess I’m just… annoyed.

Anyway, rants aside, this hasn’t been that bad of a… damn, its been a few weeks, hasn’t it.. all things considered. We went out last Friday night to an Industry Mixer, and ended up hanging out with a few of the guys from RockStar games (unfortunately, I can’t namedrop this time, due to the secrecy that the company operates under, and the fact that in doing so, I may end up with a hit out on me *cough*). We discussed to some extent the enjoyment that Mike has been getting out of GTA 4, and they tipped us off to a Rockband competition taking place in Vancouver that we should check out… so we did. You can read about that over at
http://www.villagegamer.net.  We actually attended the finals today, and got a chance to see an amazing up-and-coming band from the UK play live. There are some amazing announcements regarding them, but I’ll save that for later. In the meantime though, check them out. The name is "Mendella".
http://www.myspace.com/mendellaband

Went shopping with Tami yesterday (yeah, I’m jumping all over the calendar), and among the many things we picked up was a brand new Nintendo Wii for the house. It was technically an investment for Killanet and DSL, but just the same… I didn’t initially think it would be that fun of a system when it first came out, but I am the first to admit in this case that I was wrong, and I
apologize to Nintendo (who will be visiting us at DSL 2008). I beg your forgiveness in hopes that you do not dispatch a short pudgy plumber to deal with me. *cough*

We’ve launched a brand new site, focused on the Vancouver Gaming Industry.
http://www.villagegamer.net.  The site also has a good idea on what I’ve been up to over the past few weeks. Check it out.

Anyway, things are rocking hard here, and I predict an amazing Summer ahead. Keep tuned to
http://www.bladeradio.com for Mendella, and keep tuned to this site for personal updates.

Take care everyone.

WTF??? Like seriously… what the Hell is the deal with the weather here all of a sudden?  In one day, we went from 10 degrees and sunny, to 0 and snowing, to 2 and hail, to 10 and sunny… ALL IN A FRICKIN’ HOUR!!!  So I’m standing there thinking "No, this can’t really be happening…" but it was, and bloody hell, it sucked.  Mind you, it didn’t snow enough to stick, but just the same, white crap fell from the sky when it was supposed to be sunny and warm.  Damn BC Coastal climate.

On a side-note, Digital Storm LAN has signed on a few new sponsors.  RedBeard joined us yesterday, and has offered to send a number of high quality OEM skins for the LAN.  What are OEM skins?  Well, they are metal foil skins that you can put over your DS, PSP, or XBox to give them a completely unique look.  They use a 6 colour print process onto the metal, then coated in a clear epoxy to provide protection from scratches and dings.  This allows you to have a flame job, or advertising for your own company, or favorite movie logo right there on the side of your game console (or whatever else).

DSL has also partnered with VS-Gaming Arena out of Vancouver, giving them exclusive in-store ticket retail sales.  In simple English, this means that if you want to buy a ticket for DSL in person and can not make it to one of our selling events, you can buy the ticket at his Cafe anytime during their regular business hours.. and can even sit down at one of his many computer terminals to check email, or just frag the guy on the other side of the room.  It’s all good, and Dustin is a great guy, so be sure to swing through and say hi, even if you don’t need a ticket.  He’s got a CS 1.6 Tournament coming up on the 12th and 13th, so if you’re into the FPS games, this might be just up your alley.

We have another "in person" ticket sale taking place at the Croatian Cultural Center on April 12th, from 1PM to 4PM (it’s a Saturday).  There is also a monthly computer swap meet taking place there at the same time, so come and buy your ticket, and stay for the sale.

On a personal note, umm… lesse, what is there I can talk about…?  Uhh… yeah, I’m drawing a total blank on this one.  It must be because it’s my day off and my brain refuses to function when it doesn’t actually have to.  days off are good.  Like pizza.  I like pizza.  And cookies (yes, I am simply looking around the room and describing what I see… sad, isn’t it?).  Caffeine is good too… and speaking of which, my cup is empty, so I’m gone to get a refill.

Take care everyone, and coffee to all.

           And time marches on.  Well, at the moment it’s sort of on it’s knees, crawling towards the impending date… but it’s moving forward, which is good (time moving backwards is always a bad sign, unless it’s in the Superman-sense where he’s reversing natural disasters caused by a nuclear warhead targeted at the San Andreas fault… which sucks, because that fault-line runs right up the BC coast.  But I digress).  Digital Storm LAN 2008 is coming fast, and we have our first official "in person" sale date set for Saturday, March 22nd at the Center.  What’s this mean?  Well, primarily, it’s a great chance to meet some of the potential attendees, as well as a chance to start seeing something come in from the sale of the tickets (which will of course end up going towards paying off the cost of the hall rental, but whatever).  There has been some speculation going around that DSL has sort of come out of nowhere and is trying to undermine other events taking place in the area… I’m kind of disappointed by such comments and would like to set the record strait by linking directly to a post that Tami has made in regards to such "net-line rumours" (grapevines, while good for standard rumour spreading, does not handle the loading of web pages nearly as quickly as the fibre lines running through town, so we will use net-lines to spread the good word instead).  Check it out on the DSL forum at http://www.digitalstormlan.com/forum (it’s there, I swear it).
           Wow… run-on paragraph.  Anyhow, things are going great here… as always.  It’s great (I think I’ve said this before) to be back on the West Coast, where you can strip off your rain gear because its sunny and hot, and by the time you hang it up on your machine (I drive a forklift, remember), the clouds have rolled back in and it’s pissing down rain (wait, I’m not done yet)… so, you take the gear and proceed to put it back on.  In the 30 seconds that have passed, so too has the cloud of eternal waterfalls, and it’s again sunny and hot… and people are staring at you like you’re nuts for wearing such heavy rain-gear on such a nice day.  Yep, BC climate is awesome in it’s annoyance.  But the perks far outweigh the downside to living in a coastal rain-forest, and I’m loving being back on home soil.
           Video Games Live went on sale the other day, slightly ahead of original planned date… Tami hit up Ticketmaster, and actually got us 3rd row tickets.  So, we are essentially going to be in the orchestra pit for the show… well, not right IN the pit, but close enough that I could probably sneeze on the brass section and infect them with whatever sickness has managed to plague the staff at work.  Not that I would do something cruel like that.  I save my sneezing on people for my co-workers… just helping to spread the bugs.
           Mike is still rocking hard with Blade Radio.  He’s logged in over 35 hours this past week on the air, and is going strong with (as was reported to him tonight) a record-blowing (for them) 250 listeners.  That’s a lot for a small fresh-start Internet Radio station catering primarily to Guild Wars players.  Don’t take that the wrong way though, they don’t JUST do Guild Wars stuff… oh no, they are constantly giving away swag and prizes, from in-game gold, to actual computer hardware and software.  And of course, there’s the music itself, which is, in my opinion, well worth the bandwidth.  They broadcast 2 separate streams, depending on your connection speed, so it’s very friendly to a large number of potential listeners out there.  Their website is http://www.bladeradio.com (pardon the fact that the web-pages themselves are somewhat slow… I’m trying to convince them to upgrade their web host to someone with more speed available… the radio does not operate on the same speeds), so check them out when you have some time and want to listen to great music.
           As for me?  I’m going to go work on a website… or maybe grab some caffeine and bang my head on a desk… oh wait, one inevitably leads to the other anyway.  So I guess I’ll go grab some caffeine, work on a website, and bang my head on the desk for a while.  Got a busy few months ahead of me, and frighteningly I am actually sort of looking forward to it.

…………..

           I must be nuts.

DSL 2008 is running in high gear now! We’ve confirmed a location and a date for the LAN… August 1-3 2008 at the Croatian Cultural Center. We’ve been contacting mondo-sponsors, and the planning is moving quickly. As Tami says, she thrives on this sort of thing.? Since I missed out on DSL 2006 (advancearticle.jpg aldstar3.jpg llytimesjune27.jpg motusarticle.jpg), and was only here for weekends on DSL 2007, this is going to be a major event for me (here’s hoping it goes well).

I was given a unique opportunity for my birthday this year… I got to be one of the “heads” for the 2nd Annual Elans Awards show here in Vancouver, along with Tami and Mike. The show is put on by Jack and Holly, and Tami was essentially their right… sorry, left (Tami is left handed) hand for the event, Mike was given the title of “Security Head” (two days before the event), and I was the head of the Limo team, as well as doubling as security. As the night went on, it appeared that I was also the main contact point between the volunteers, and Tami (who was in direct contact with the Producers), and the near-constant chatter over my headset made it very hard to focus on what Seth Macfarlane was saying. But, we pulled through, and other than a few technical problems (which are bound to happen during a live show) things went very well. We will definitely be on the list for next years event as well (only hopefully it will have more planning involved in advance). I did take pictures, as did some of the other volunteers I worked with, and I will of course upload them as soon as I get the time to put them all together and clean a few of them up. It’s coming, I swear.

Home life is going well. Got my first root canal at the beginning of the month. That was an expensive yet enjoyable experience. Okay, I’m lying. The drugs were definitely enjoyable though, and made it easy to forget that there was even any pain to begin with. It’s nice to be able to finally get my teeth looked at and fixed up. It had been far too long, and as the dentist said, right now I’m looking to buy him a brand new car by the time he’s done in there. Whatever, as long as the owie goes away, and the pills flow freely. Yet another nice thing about being back in Canada… “Why yes, I would like to have a prescription for a bottle full of Tylenol 3′s… $9? I think I can cover that…”

I think Mike may have found his calling. He starts voice acting school on April 6th, and he’s now got a job DJing for an online radio station (who is looking to expand to XM Radio) called Bladeradio. He’s DJ Behemoth, and right now, broadcasts at around midnight… given his sleep schedule, he’s perfectly set for this time slot. He’s having a great time doing it, and has shown amazing responsibility with keeping to the schedule (“I’m so tired… but I go on in 2 hours, and still have to put some songs together… can’t sleep yet!!”). Bladeradio has actually signed on to be one of the sponsors to DSL, and Mike is set to broadcast live from the LAN… should be entertaining.

Overall, things are moving along very well, and I can’t wait to see what the Summer has to bring to our plans. If DSL goes well, we may finally be able to open our physical store here in town (once council clues in to the fact that we are NOT a bloody arcade), and things will really take off.

Next on the to-do list… find, purchase, and prepare a brand new (likely Dell) server, and figure out how to route 380 computers, 3-12 xBoxes, and 18 24-port switches through it. Can’t take more than 15 or 20 minutes, right? Anyone got a few thousand feet of Cat5e cable they don’t need?

 Birthdays.  I fail to see what the big deal is about them.  So you’re a year older.  All that really means is that you managed to survive one more year.  Mind you, personally that can be a great feat, given my history of "oops" experiences… but just the same, it’s only a day, the same as any other.  Right?

 So next month I turn 30.  Being a person who was rather amazed to survive to 20, 30 is probably some sort of big deal… or something.  Having never turned 30 before, I don’t exactly have anything I can compare it to.  I’m sure it’s important to some people when they experience the event, but personally it’s just not that big of a deal.

 How would I like to spend it?  Sleeping in, cuddled up to someone I love.  Really, that’s all I want for my birthday.  It kind of narrows down the list of who I can get a present like that from, doesn’t it?

 One would think that, after 30 years of existence, a person would be able to figure some things out.  But then again, if that was the case, we wouldn’t have the saying "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it".  Have I learned from my history?  I should hope that, at the very least, some of my mistakes will not be repeated.  I’m happy where I am now, and of course I would not be there without having made some mistakes in my past.  They are essentially what made me who I am, and I can live with that.

 So I get to spend this birthday doing something amazing.  The eLans are being held the day after I turn 30 (the second annual eLans), and I get to actually work backstage for it.  The chance to help run (even if on a micro-scale) a major Canadian Awards event, and meet some extremely talented and well-known people (like "Family Guy’s" Seth MacFarlane) is an amazing opportunity for me, and I think it’s a great way to ring in "number 30".  Of course, I’ll likely be too busy focusing on the awards show to even care that it’s my birthday.

 I must say though… it will be a very nice, and refreshing change to spend my birthday with someone I love and who loves me.  Might even be the start of a change, where I have something to look forward to with each passing year.

…….

 Or maybe I’m just getting old.

On a side-note, DigitalStormLan 2008 is running full-steam ahead.  We’re about to launch an entire series of new sites (which, of course, I will link to when they go live), and we have a number of potential locations scouted out for the LAN party, which will also be a qualifier for the World Cyber Games.  And, of course, with the completion of one headache, comes the onset of another.  Once DSL is completed for the year, we begin to kick our next project into gear… the opening of a physical location here in Aldergrove, to act as the new "Home Base" for Killanet Technology.  What is the base going to be?  We’ll be an Educational Media Outlet… a location where people can come in to learn things from the basics of computer control, to the more advanced fundamentals of Graphics design and animation, all the way up to game developement.  We plan on having several computer terminals available to the public during open hours, so that they may complete homework, research projects, check their email, or even just chat with friends.  There’s plans to have guest speakers and "teachers" come in from the multitude of Studios around Vancouver to show people how they do their magic, and there is even plans to go retail (seeing as we would need to be able to cover the lease somehow) and become one of the (hopefully) primary computer repair and supply locations in the area.

So yes, things are going very well, and I can see "30" as being a great year.  Assuming I survive that long.  20 was lucky… 30… well, you get the idea. 

Take care everyone, and talk with you soon.

- Me