RAVE RAVE, TECHNO TECHNO!

You're going to see a lot of changes here in the very near future - I, along with the other 30-odd folks in the company, have lost my Linux network administrator job of six years.

Some people would call that "unemployed".  I prefer to pronounce it "professional musician". ;)

We got a severance package, and I plan to apply for EI as soon as I'm eligible.  For the next several months, I intend to spend a full-time-job's worth of time in the studio, so all the projects I've been putting off are now my main focus...

Basically, I worked for Software Company A (name changed to protect... well, I dunno who I'm protecting at this point, I guess I'm just avoiding Google).  Software Company A produced a major online game, which we'll call Game X, which we licensed to Company B, who operated the game and the business around it.   Game X was one of the first really good games in the genre, and was wildly successful, and as such, so was Company B.

So successful, in fact, that Major Company C came along.  Major Company C owns a lot of smaller companies, and operates a large number of games.  They'd had their eyes on Game X for quite a while, and eventually they made an offer that Company B couldn't refuse.  Software Company A remained unchanged.

Obviously this isn't the greatest business setup, so Major Company C began talks to purchase Software Company A.  Then, inexplicably, one day last night they stopped the talks and said "Y'know, I think we're going to just move all the players off of Game X and onto Game Y, which we also own, and scrap the whole thing."

Well, IMHO they're full-on nutjobs.  But whatever.

Anyway, now Erin and I are both unemployed - I've had a couple of offers, where she's had like, seven so far, and counting.  Frankly, I'm totally uninterested; I haven't really had my heart in system/network administration for a while now, and the break is both welcome and necessary.  I'm going to take a few months off and see if the desire and drive to admin big unix networks rekindles, and if not, I've gotta figure out what to do with the rest of my life - maybe go back to school like Mister Jody.  Maybe learn a trade.  Maybe buy a sailboat and go cruising for a couple of years.

Anyway - as for projects, the top of my list is this website.  Seriously, my website has sucked for a looooong time - I've got a lot of content, but it's a serious pain to update.  Until recently I was using Mozilla Editor, but that's not available anymore, so I've been doing painful updates with 'vi'.  This new site, using 'Joomla!', should let me add content pretty easily, so I should be updating regularly.

Next up on the block: record a new demo CD.  Last year I used the 2005 Listening Room video as a demo, and handed out DVDs.  That went well, but since there was no 2006 Listening Room, there's no more great video to edit and release.  I've got a full, awesome set of techno in the sequencers, it's just a matter of taking a week or two to record and edit it all.

After that - well, seriously, I need to get some tracks out there.  I've got sixteen tracks in the sequencers right now, and I'm already pretty sick of three or four of them.  If I buckle down and work hard at them, I should be able to get at least four tracks finished in the next three months, then shop them out to some labels and see if I can't get them out on vinyl - tho really, I'm not sure that matters so much anymore.  Maybe the answer is to go straight to digital, start a label of my own, and try to get picked up by Beatport or iTunes?

Who knows.  All I know is that I have a few months - where a few months could mean two-three months, or up to a year - in which to get my techno ducks in a techno row.  I get one solid kick at this can, let's see if I can make it count.

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