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It's been a pretty great week-and-a-half for me!

Continued working. People there seem to like what I've done so far, so it's all good. A few freelance opportunities have also show up on the side for more web stuff.

I also started guest writing for Offworld and wrote a short, little piece for Edge. I called these extra-career-icular activities. Also, after almost ten years of weblogging, this is the first time I've ever been paid to write something. :tup: Things are looking rosy, and the weather's been great too.

:amelie:

Congrats Mike! Just saw your story reposted on RPS, which was a hilarious moment - "Mike Nowak? OH YEAH! Sweet!"

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I had the last of five exams in this period last Wednesday and have been just relaxing since then knowing that they all probably went more than well. I'm starting tomorrow in the company I worked last summer. I enjoyed it quite a bit last time around so I hope it hasn't changed much. There is a tiny chance that the boss don't remember giving me the job, however, since it was all settled on a phone last February and we haven't spoken since, but I'm fairly confident it'll be ok. Would be a bit awkward though.

I have also been playing with Processing for a couple of days and it seems pretty nifty. So far I've only made this app (might work on mac, windows and linux. Press 'h' for help) to test the led matrix I ordered a while ago but still haven't got. It's only 8x8 and won't display too many colors, but meh, I can draw space invaders stuff on this.

Edited by Nappi

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I have also been playing with Processing for a couple of days and it seems pretty nifty. So far I've only made this app (might work on mac, windows and linux. Press 'h' for help) to test the led matrix I ordered a while ago but still haven't got. It's only 8x8 and won't display too many colors, but meh, I can draw space invaders stuff on this.

Woo, pretty. Works on mac.

I'm contemplating building something like this (with 100% less disco and bar).

On the upside, it would be an awesome, bright, full colour pixel-art display big enough to run Tetris among many other things. I already have the diffused perspex, but to fill it with 3cm cells, I'd be soldering over 5000 connections and also need to design, fabricate and solder controller boards to work with ATMega168 chips ¬¬

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The linux version appears to be missing a lib folder, so I created one and copied and pasted the JARs over from the mac version. When I ran it my display went completely mental and I ended up having to do a hard reboot. It seems to have moved icons about on my gnome panels too, which is odd. I recommend other linux users proceed with caution.

Still, I appreciate you sharing your app Nappi :tup:

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The linux version appears to be missing a lib folder, so I created one and copied and pasted the JARs over from the mac version. When I ran it my display went completely mental and I ended up having to do a hard reboot. It seems to have moved icons about on my gnome panels too, which is odd. I recommend other linux users proceed with caution.

Still, I appreciate you sharing your app Nappi :tup:

Oh wow.. sorry about that. :eek:

I updated the zip with correct jar files for linux. Processing creates applications for win, mac and linux but I forgot the lib folder for linux last time I made the zip. Not sure if it works any better now though.

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Wow, congrats n0wak! :tup: We spent the afternoon together and you never once mentioned writing when I asked you what you did :hmph:

Why? You in need of a writer? :buyme:

And it was something that I didn't do back then, save for typical weblog fodder and personal travel journal. Not exactly worth mentioning, that. It's only recently that it became something with more, shall we say, potential.

Processing is pretty fun. I haven't touched it since it was version 0.7 or so, I think, maybe even earlier, but I really want to get back into it. That and Unity. So many things, so little time. :violin:

to test the led matrix I ordered a while ago but still haven't got.

How you doing that? Arduino or something similar?

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How you doing that? Arduino or something similar?

Yeah. Arduino.

Which I haven't got either. Damn Swedes. :shifty:

Also, the boss had remembered me and everything was pretty much the same as before in the company. Yey.

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Why? You in need of a writer? :buyme:

Unfortunately not. It's just you really didn't have much to say about what you did or what you were planning to do... This sounds rather interesting is all! :tup:

It was something that I didn't do back then, save for typical weblog fodder and personal travel journal. Not exactly worth mentioning, that. It's only recently that it became something with more, shall we say, potential.

Fair enough. I have a Canadian journalist friend whose head would probably explode if I told her you'd managed to get a little piece printed in Edge -- despite not really having much/any professional experience! As I understand it, it's quite an aggressive job space!

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I know because I'm new no-one probably cares, but the internet is for venting.

Basically I missed my first exam of the summer because I slept through it, despite trying to sleep at a reasonable time but being unable to. Not because of worry, but because I feel like crap, due to a few circumstances, meaning I fell unconscious when I couldn't stay awake at 5am (exhaustion).

The only one of the circumstances I feel comfortable venting is that when 2 of my friends died in 2 separate car crashes within a month or so of each other. Both of these guys were only 19 at the time, and I think it has only just hit me because tomorrow would have been the oldest ones 20th birthday.

Tomorrow I am going to see a university counsellor to talk, there are other problems I need to get through too.

[/Vent]

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Gods in heaven Patters you just ruined my day, now I'll feel like shit cause I'm awefuly saorry for you and would like to help you and I just can't figure out how...

I lost the only boy I ever loved a few years ago and just like you, it only hit me on his birthday... Hang on, life's a bitch but as long as there are pretty girls pretty boys and pretty landscapes, there are things to fuck with !

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Happy times! Just got back from a funeral myself. This one was for an older woman, so not quite as tragic. Still, this older woman happened to be my girlfriend's grandmother and she died (bum bada bum!) on my girlfriend's birthday! After the funeral we went back with her grandfather to the house to keep him company for a while, and the gf found a bunch of stuffed animals her grandmother had knitted for her when she was little. She'd kept it together pretty well up to that point, but that was the last straw. After things had calmed down a bit, I ended up having to keep her little cousin (about 3 years old) occupied so the rest of the family could have some quiet time together. Anyone who's ever had to explain death to a three year old can probably understand how the conversation went while we were at the nearby park.

We're still going to try to have a bit of a birthday thing for her, but I think it will just be me, her sister, and her best friend with her.

Patters, for your friends and whatever else it is you feel less comfortable talking about, you have my sympathies. Doesn't really seem like this is a great month for a lot of people.

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The little lady sat on a train and left Wednesday morning for a week and a half in DC. She is still on the train, in the last leg of the journey. She thought that traveling by train would be awesome and exciting, or something, but now she just wants a shower. I've been alone in a very empty house for two days now.

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Sympathies all round.

Sorry, I don't have a more eloquent or expressive way of putting it.

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The department I work for has just been gutted, everyone else has either been fired or moved into different positions making the tasks we currently do pretty impossible.

I'm sitting at home, at 10AM, drinking a beer and trying to summon the courage to go into work on Monday to see who else has been fired.

To be honest, all I want to do right now is resign.

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To be honest, all I want to do right now is resign.

Hold out for that redundancy money!

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The department I work for has just been gutted, everyone else has either been fired or moved into different positions making the tasks we currently do pretty impossible.

I'm sitting at home, at 10AM, drinking a beer and trying to summon the courage to go into work on Monday to see who else has been fired.

To be honest, all I want to do right now is resign.

On the other hand, not being fired or being fired last means you're one of the best, try your best ;p

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Thanks for the sympathies.

My boss is trying to make it work and asking me to come up with ideas.

On a more important note there are clearly people out there with more pressing problems than whether to tell the company they work for to go fuck themselves or not.

I've been visiting these forums for about 5 years and it is the people who post who keep me coming back. My condolences to everyone who is having a bad year.

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Soemthing I found out the other day though is that the dole office now refund you your travel costs to interviews, which is good.

England has such an amazing social safety net.

"England is mine; it owes me a living."

-Morrissey

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...And just like that, shit turns around. Today was somehow awesome. I woke up and got an email from a professor and it looks like things are finally starting to gel after a couple of months of stress over my honours thesis. For a while now, I've been trying to secure an honours supervisor. I've talked to a few people, but my first choice is unfortunately on sabbatical in England. He'll be back in September when I really need to start writing, but approaching him from a different continent is obviously not an easy thing when this sort of arrangement requires vetting. Last week I decided to hell with it and emailed him. After a bunch of correspondence to get a feel for one another's work and writing style, he's agreed to be my supervisor. Much joy from this, as it's a huge weight off my mind. The biggest thing though, is work related.

I've been wanting to find a second job for the summer. Some of you who've been around for a while may remember that prior to a shake-up in upper management and some clashes about how things should be done, I was head projectionist at one of the three art-house cinemas in my city for a couple of years. After leaving on less-than-friendly (read: Them:"we think it'd be best if we parted ways" Me:"cool, do you still want this letter of resignation I brought to the meeting?") terms last March, I eventually settled into my current gig at HMV. It was always just a job to get me through school and not a real career path like it is for many projectionists, so the loss didn't really hit me that hard and taking a lower job didn't hurt too much, but I do really miss it from time to time.

Well, today I went to visit my girlfriend at work. Her crappy student job is making smoothies for the local business elite at a Jugo Juice. (a Canadian-based health drink place) Just so happens that across the street from her location is another one of the art-house cinemas. This one just went through a shake-up in management as well. A friend and career-projectionist coworker from back in the day has just taken full ownership of the theater. As I was leaving, he saw me and ran out of the building to talk. Seems that they're having some difficulty finding a projectionist to work a few days a week. Art-houses are decidedly lower tech than your average multiplex. While a multiplex is largely automated these days, running a typical art-house theater's system requires months of training just so you don't catch on fire. As a 21 year old who actually has this training nowadays, I'm sort of an oddity. Most theaters just don't bother teaching people. He asked me if I'd be interested in taking charge of the place 2 or 3 nights a week.

So, it looks like after about a year and a quarter hiatus, I'll be getting back into the projection game. Plus, this would be an ideal job to have during the school year as the place doesn't even open before 6. Only one screen too, which is frankly a cakewalk compared to my responsibilities at the previous theater. I'm really excited about this. There are only two other guys on the projection team right now, both of whom I've worked with in the past and get along great with. One of these is now the owner, and as such doesn't want to be running as many shows, thus the opening. It feels great to be getting back into it. And not at some huge multiplex either. One of the oldest buildings in the city, and a principal venue for our film festival as well. It just occurred to me, if I work there in September, I'll have been a projectionist for 4 of the past 5 film festivals in Calgary. That's a damn cool feeling considering that 5 years ago I was 16.

Sorry, I'm rambling now, but I'm excited. May was kind of crap right up until the last day, which exploded with awesome. It's really nice to actually have some good news to tell. One fantastic day after a bunch of crap and stress is always nice. I'm kind of riding the high from all of this right now. I hope very much that some of the other recent posters in this thread have similar days quite soon. It's really staggering how quickly fortunes can reverse sometimes. Of course, knowing this, it's time to wait for the other shoe to drop...

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I'm 26 today, reaching the outer edge of my mid-twenties. I've been too busy lately to put much thought into whether I'm where I thought I would/should be or anything like that. Thinking about it now, though...I guess it's good that I am in a career-esque job currently, I can make rent and bills and save a little bit each month. I like where I live. I have been dating someone for a couple of months now and I think it's going well. So, contentment? Sure. Let's see how that works out.

I wish I'd had some time to put a little party together though. Monkey Island ruined everything!

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First time life-splurger.

I've been trying to make progress as a freelance writer over the last few months. I've mostly written for sites like Den of Geek, on an unpaid basis, but as they're pretty well connected with PRs, they have good opportunities for interviews, reviews, screenings, etc. So through them I've been able to do a lot, and get a lot of varied experience - and do special cool things like interview Neil Gaiman and Henry Selick for Coraline.

Last week was probably the biggest 'success' week I've had so far. Games-wise, I was invited to go to a preview event for the new Luxoflux game, the movie licence game for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It was the first time I'd been able to do any 'games journalism' stuff in terms of previews, and even though it's a flawed area of writing, it was great.

But the real success was having my first paid article published - a feature on Games for Laptops for Micro Mart magazine (a relatively popular tech/hardware weekly in the UK). Really excited about that, as now I can actually call myself a journalist without having to qualify by explaining the complexities of unpaid professionalism.

In comparison, this week is really slow, with nothing scheduled and not much on the horizon. So I'm getting anxious, ish. Oh, it's a complex world. :violin:

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Hey Miffy, that sounds pretty great!

And I've finished my last school exams now, so I have four months off until I start uni! A lot of video games will be played, a lot of shifts at work completed and (if I can motivate myself) a lot of writing will be done.

:woohoo:

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