Tag: pax

One A Day, Day 8: Success!

I have successfully managed to arrange my escape from my job! Went to see my boss today and, as it turns out, I was only obliged to give one week’s notice to quit. As tempting as it was to say “Well, I’ll bugger off next week then. Ta-ra!” I decided against it so I can actually have a bit of money on hand in order to go to PAX.

Because this exciting news means that I will definitely be going! I’m stoked. The last time I went to a big industry event was when they still did them in Europe. I attended ECTS (the European Computer Trade Show, if I remember rightly) with my bro, and that was a long time back now. I’ve heard my buddies in the Squadron of Shame wax lyrical about PAX in the past and have been incredibly jealous. Now I get to join in the fun. It’s going to be an awesome time, and I can’t wait to finally meet some of the guys I’ve only ever spoken to on Skype before… or in some cases (Mr Bowlissimo!) only ever typed things to.

Also, my Bayonetta article got promoted to the front page on BitMob. People dig the IF thing, so I wrote another one. I also downloaded the Inform interactive fiction toolset to have a play with. Inform is bizarre – it’s a programming language that works very similarly to plain English. I’m going to knuckle down and have a good go with it this week – probably at the weekend.

So – two good things in one day. It’s a nice change. It even managed to distract me from the fact that the kids in my class were being stupid noisy bastards all day and the meeting we had after school was beyond pointless. Now I have a countdown (which I haven’t calculated yet) I can relax a bit more. Except for the fact I don’t have a new job to go to yet. Still, I have a couple of applications in for some exciting jobs, the closing date for one of which is this Friday, so I’ll have to wait and see if anything comes of that.

Then there’s the possibility of doing some freelance work. This would be ideal, especially if I could combine it with some music teaching work. I like music teaching. People pay you and you work with them on an individual basis. You don’t have thirty annoying children all talking to each other and not listening in front of you. Much more pleasant and less inclined to make you want to throw things.

That’s that for today. I’m going to go play some Star Trek now.

One A Day, Day 4: Blurring Realities

I bought a ticket for PAX East yesterday. I don’t know if I’m going yet (the twin barriers of not yet having a plane ticket and not yet having resigned from my shitty job currently standing in the way), but the sheer prospect of going and being able to meet my buddies from the Squadron of Shame – some for the first time, some for the second time – is enormously exciting. The age of the Internet has given us that curious phenomenon of the “friend-not-met” (thanks to Jenn Frank for educating me in the ways of FOAF some time back) where there are people out there whom you feel very close to despite never having seen their face outside blurry Facebook pictures or iPhone uStream feeds while they’re recording a podcast. You know, for example.

But the Squad are just that. I may be a couple of thousand miles away from them, but they’re my bros, my buddies, the legen-wait for it-dary ones, that sort of thing. Which is why the opportunity to potentially meet so many of them in one place at such a massive nerdgasm as PAX will be beyond awesome – even if podcast host Chris‘ revelation that “if someone threw a grenade in there, they’d wipe out the whole Squad” was somewhat chilling. Who would play Pathologic and then podcast about it for three hours then? (Of course, it may be your opinion that the world can do without three-hour long podcasts on the subject of Pathologic, but that’s a discussion for another day.)

It’s pretty awesome that the Internet, as well as being the home of ridiculous chavs like this, can also be the home of genuine friendships and new ways to stay in touch. I know that every time I sit down and listen to the Exploding Barrel Podcast, for example, it’s like I’m hanging out with Mike Minotti of Bitmob (as he now prefers to be known, formerly Tolkoto) and his brother AJ rather than listening to people I don’t have any real connection with. As time has continued on its way and the good word of the Squad has spread further and wider, mostly thanks to Twitter, we’ve picked up more and more people who want to be involved, some from other sites, some from other podcasts, some who are just awesome people.

And that’s pretty cool. That’s, as they say, some Web 2.0 shit right there. And I love it.