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Buddies
No, we can't ALL get along. Sadly, that's human nature.
There's always some sort of unease in this business that I do. One of the realities and inevitabilities of leadership is the fact that you simply can't please everyone. Despite how honest I am, and with all facts presented, there is no salvation for me in certain peoples' eyes. I've spent a tremendous amount of time trying to understand this.
Despite ALL my hard work and efforts, ALL my honesty, ALL of my evidence, ALL the reassuring, there are times when it's just not enough. I exhaust all approaches and methods I can think of to rectify problems and tough situation between myself and others. I do all I can think of, and I get nowhere.
Where do I go wrong? These are strange situations. I'm not used to being the "bad guy." I've always been able to make things work. I'm a problem solver by nature (must be why I like programming so much), so when something goes unsolved it drives me crazy. I'm having an extremely hard time just letting things go. I just want to understand so I can move forward, but at times I can't even communicate with the person(s) in question. They'll cut all ties and I refuse to resort to childish methods that I feel would harm my personal ethics. Plus I'm not a child.
Does that make me stubborn? Refusal to try childish methods that might get me answers? I think it shows a tremendous amount of integrity; standing by my morals and being confident in my position. Those who observe my actions and dealing with those that are butting heads with me can easily tell that I do everything in my power to create common interest. I don't feel I was ever lacking in my communication to those who refused to truly open up and discuss the issues at hand. "If you want to talk about it, come talk to me about it!"
"I'm here if you want to talk."
"Call me if you need anything."
I can't tell you how many times I say this. Do I have some sort of hard-to-deal-with nature? Why do I give off that vibe when I intend the opposite?
Ugh. Such a frustrating situation. Even though I try to dismiss any hope of actually resolving the situation, DESPITE my efforts, I feel rather misunderstood and disturbed that the other side of the coin never took the time to understand my side (to avoid hypocrisy, I have rationalized the other side of my coin, and things still don't make sense to me). I guess some folks out there are literally ALL about themselves and nothing more.
Disappointing. What did I learn?
- It's absolutely impossible to please everyone. This is why we still have the two retarded political parties.
- People will likely NEVER pull you aside and actually confront you if they have a problem. They'll be passive. You're going to have to almost beat the truth out of 'em.
- If you attempt to confront others, 90% of the time you won't get the whole truth.
- Emotion will always overrule rationality, EVEN WHEN ALL CARDS ARE ON THE TABLE AND THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY YOU ARE WRONG.
- People will almost always blame someone or something else when they are threatened to look within for problems.
Make all the assumptions you want, this blog is about my general experience with people and not any single situation. Just thought you should know. :)
Ahem. Anyway, I had a question come in, and it took me a while to get to it. Sorry 'bout that.
Name: Simon
Subject: Blarg. I think advice is needed.
Question: Pluh Rawrb-ski
I got a problem with my band
Basically theres me, a keyboardist and a bassist. We are an industrial metal band and stuff, inspired by many bands including the 'stick, and yeah.
Anyway, we can't find any decent guitarists/drummers and I could do with some tips.
Plus we had to change our bandname after some copyright thingiemajigabie and we've ran out of ideyarrs. Anyhelp?
PLUUUHHH FROM UK
Wheeelp, I don't know how publication works over there in the UK, but start hitting up newspapers and online networking to get some recruitment going. Go to local shows, talk to other bands, make buddies. Ask 'em if they know anyone who's free and looking to join up a band. You'll almost always find someone to join up. That's how we found Alex - Phoenix New Times. RAWR! The band name thing is just gonna have to be you constantly thinking of ideas. Toss ideas around with your bandmates. No matter what, once you've told yourself you need to think of a band name, you mind will always be working on it. I thought of the Psychostick band name half-asleep at 2:00 AM.
AND... that's all. I got a couple web jobs lined up (WOOHOO), so I'll be able to make my move sooner than later. I've missed my Xbox. Plus Jarsh gets here in a few days - hooray for songwriting!
Accountability is not the ability to crunch numbers.
What does it take to succeed? In anything? I pose this question to you in hopes that you can understand me better and better yourself.
People want to succeed - they do. Inherently, of course. Doing whatever it takes to move forward is another story, and that - it seems - is where most fall short and seriously start to lack real accountability for their actions. Better yet, accountability for their LACK of action.
Here are my thoughts on how to take the right steps towards success and happiness.
- Accept criticism from your peers and superiors. If people are taking enough time to talk to you to help you "see the light" or whatever, listen with an open mind. Take notes. Don't fight or make excuses, just listen. If justification for your behavior makes sense, plead your case, but don't make excuses. People will always see you in a different light than you see yourself. If someone has been doing what you want to do long than you have, and possibly better, they have wisdom to share. BASK IN IT. Many times you will simply not like what you hear, and you may even disagree, but you can learn and grow from it. (Note: This does not mean "roll with the punches.")
- Keep the lines of communication open. This one baffles me. I am presently in a situation where I simply need to talk to a person for a few minutes, but I'm getting the silent treatment due to some irrationality. If you keep your ears and eyes open, take a phone call, respond to an e-mail/text, you are at the very least facing the right direction for progress.
- Be accountable. Know when you messed up. Learn from it.
- Think big. Simply focusing on the little, day-to-day dramatics will not get you any closer towards the big payday. You do have to deal with the little stuff, of course, but don't get swept away by it. It's good to ask yourself, "Is this what I truly want to be doing? How is this getting me closer to my dreams?"
- Be happy. Sound stupid, right? It's not. If you're not happy, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Even if you have to make huge changes in your life that affect others, you deserve to be happy.
- Do, or do not. There is no try. Yoda is brilliant. Do something, or don't. Don't say you will and don't. Don't say you will and make a lame attempt. Do it, or go home.
- Accept your feelings. Sometimes you're down. Sometimes you're depressed. FEEL those emotions, let them pass through you. Resisting them is letting them persist even more. After you feel them, ask yourself, "Now what?" Solutions will always present themselves.
- Don't take financial advice from broke people. This is a broader statement than you think. It simply means if you want to succeed in something, seek out others that have succeeded, and pick their brains and follow your path.
I could go on and on here, but let me be plain about something: nothing lasts forever. Your job, relationships, friendships, life, food, etc. Change is a constant in this universe, no matter what your beliefs are. It's coming, and if you don't adapt, you will lose your footing and get swept away.
There's your Rawrbness for today. Pass it along, or die trying! :P
I bet there's an app for dramatic nonsense.
Heyawr! Man I've been out of my regular e-commission for a stupid amount of time. Uh, sorry? Hah. Not really. My "excuses" all line up to the idea of me "relaxing" and "being busy." Since we last spoke, there was something like this going on:
- Tour
- Video Games
- Tour
- Video Games
- Drama
- Video Games
- Girlfriend
- Tour
Of course, everyone's eyes see the "drama" part of it and they want to know what I'm talking about. Did you NOT see the touring and Video Games?! The drama part of it makes me realize that despite how good I *think* I am with people, I'm often put back into my seat with my mouth agape. So I see this as a challenge and attempt to make things clearer, more positive, and solution oriented. Isn't that what it's all about? Motivation? Explaination? Breaking things down? Offering a hand of assistance? I think there's a limit to how much a person CAN motivate, explain, break things down, and offer help until they don't see the lack of drive in the receiving end. What to do, what to do...
Well anyway, I can tell you the best way for me to move forward is to, you might guess, redirect that frustrated energy into something PRODUCTIVE. This is where I truly believe most end up hitting a brick wall - they focus on being frustrated while opportunity escapes them. So guess WHART? I'm finally taking the right steps to developing my first iPhone app. OMG!
I've boasted a bit in the past on how I'm gonna make some iPhone apps, but never really had any ideas for an app. Last night I had one of the better ideas that I can't believe isn't being utilized, so I'm gonna pursue that over the next few months. If things go in a productive direction like I'm hoping and gonna work towards, I'll have this new app idea all done and in the app store before the end of the year. Wishful thinking? Maybe. Do I care? NO!
If only Panera's connection was faster so I could finish downloading Xcode and the iPhone SDK. Grr.
In band news... well, not really in the mood to talk about that. Good stuff though. Music videos, bigger tour next year - all is coming together well.
Bullshit. It's everywhere. Can you spot it?
I typed an entire blog and hit backspace and lost it.
FUCK.
Hey, Firefox (and all browsers while we're making this a point), REMOVE BACKSPACE FROM YOUR SHORTCUT KEYS. That's really annoying.
Um, so yeah - the blog was about how to spot bullshitters and dismiss them from your business and your life in general. It's pretty easy if you've got your guard up. Just watch out for sappy, emotional words like "close, personal" and such. We ARE emotional creatures and easily get caught up in all that nonsense if our guard is down. If you feel they're exaggerating the truth or going through a ton of unnessesary tangents, you're probably being bullshitted. Just make sure you ask for legitimate proof of their services, more than 3 testimonials that you can follow up on (and make sure you follow up on them), and a trial run of whatever they're offering to see if it actually works. If these three things cannot be provided in some way, you're being bullshitted and need to put a big question mark over their legitimacy. (Politicians are MASTERS of bullshit, heh heh)
Of course you'll have to adjust that last paragraph to whatever situation you're in. Bottom line: draw the line and if someone crosses it, dismiss 'em. :)
That's all from me for now. New Psychostick site design coming soon. I recently picked up a book called "Sexy Web Design." Holy crap - I finally have a little guidance with design. I've always been a self-taught developer without any real guidance from someone genuine. Believe it or not - most web developers that I've dealt with personally that are good at their trade often tend to be closed off, pompus, and arrogant. Weird eh?
But this book - hell yeah. Check it out if you're a web designer and need some pointers. It helped me tremendously.
Another GREAT book for marketing is Buyology. You will be surprised at what works and what doesn't on a neuroscientific level.
Awesomeness.
On another note, we're going to tour with Pennywise for 3 dates. Hell yes.
Ruby on your face Rails.
Vacation is gooooood.
I'm incredibly interested in Ruby on Rails. This web 2.0 stuff is very impressive to me and I'm a bit burnt out on slaving away at hundreds of lines of PHP code. I watched a few of their presentations and was just blown away about how this guy build a blog app in 15 minutes. I think about this and how much my productivity can go up just from that. The thing that would take longer would be the actual design with CSS and graphics. 0_o
So, before I start any new projects, I'm going to study Ruby on Rails in a bit more depth and get this slow moving web development thing taken care of. I figure with all these things I want to produce it'll benefit me in the long run to learn this new language and API. Luckily the past 10+ years of learning web stuff will be my learning curve. Yay!
Tomorrow I'll be blasting energy at this new DVD menu. It'll be nice to have that done.
I've decided to find more motivated writers for Pluh.com, and I think I've found a small handful who won't disappoint. I can build them the means to write awesomeness and help lead them to recognition and experience. One of those win/win situations that I'm trying my best to cultivate and unleash.
Trying to do everything for some reason.
Directing energy where you want as opposed to where you need is something I've been doing my best to conquer for a long time. I think I've gotten better at it and Psychostick is getting closer to the point where it doesn't require so much attention from me, but it's not there yet and sometimes I look at my wish list with a goofy, longing sort of look. Is it project management that I'm missing? I don't think so. I've gotten so much better at managing my tasks that I get much more done than ever before.
My biggest concern right now is finding people with that... passion. I dunno. I'm incredibly passionate about Pluh.com and what it's capable of, but with the exception of cpu I'm the only one passionate about it anymore and sometimes I bring that into question. Where did I miss the mark? Was it lack of incentive to be consistent? Was it too much to do? All of those points probably are correct, but I personally believe it's lack of some sort of leadership. Plus there wasn't much of a "goal" to hit either - where are we going with this? What's the point?
Then I get torn between that and dozens of other ideas I want to pursue. "Pick one and go for it." Right? Quality over quantity?
I begin to think that even with all of time, money, and resources at my disposal I'd still have the same problem.
How did Da Vinci do it?
I'm going to map out some more solutions to this little issue I'm dealing with. I think the first thing that I gotta do is talk to someone who's already done it, is successful from it, and can point me in the right direction.
"Don't take money advice from broke people!"
Yeah. That.
Work and play. Kill!
Woooooo. Progress is one of those things that you don't realize until you're staring right at a finished product... or so it seems. I just wrapped up the Sandwich artwork for the jewel case and disc. For some reason it was a major task where I just wanted to be done with it, and Josh wouldn't let me rush it. He definitely was right - you do not want to rush something like that... which also applies towards our recordings. This will be most apparent once you hear them. :)
I took today off from all this crazy work and played God of War. That's right - the first one. I missed out on those games up until I picked up the Chains of Prometheus prequen on the PSP and played it throughout the tour. Good game. The first God of War sure has a lot more meat on it's bones though. I'm really enjoying it. I also watched the bonus DVD that came with God of War II and now have a huge amount of appreciation for what it takes to develop a game of that calibur. Making a CD takes all 5 of us, but they had 70-ish people working on God of War II. Crazy!
Anyway, just chiming in for a second. It's so very exciting around here huh? YES.
Rayband all up in your face.
Look! A twitter feed to the left! WOW! Now you'll see what Rawrb does... at times. Amazing.
I've got so much to yack about. I'm slowly getting back into reviewing stuff again, which is fun times.
Today I went and picked up a few things including some new sunglasses, God of War for PSP and Star Ocean for PSP. Ooh. The interesting thing about that trip was my stop to a certain clothing store in the mall. When I was trying on sunglasses, I found a pair of Raybands that I liked. They were $130, so I says to guy, "Hey man, you got something like this for the price of those $40 glasses?"
Dude looks at me and says, "How about I sell you those $130 glasses for $40?"
I says, "Sold."
Look how awesome I look now.
You. Tonight.
Sweet.
It's funny though. The guy who sold me those said to me, "I have to meet a certain sales quota every hour or I get bitched at." HAR HAR. They just lost profit because of a disgruntled employee. Thanks to the horrible management I got a pair of $130 sunglasses for $40!
Time to dance.
Restlessly tired!
Tough times ahead. Things are coming down to the wire for the CD and we're doing out best to get it done in time. Ahh, the double-edged sword that is QUALITY. Sometimes things have to take longer to get the best product... but taking the time needed is always worth it.
A good example would be Blizzard Entertainment.These guys take their time and make sure that all their products are to the highest quality standards. Fix bugs, polish, fix more bugs, polish, polish... POLISH. Then, spend another year polishing. At the end you deliver an amazing product that all have been anticipating. Starcraft II and Diablo III look amazing from the teasers they've released and if I gotta wait another year for either one, I'll gladly wait.
Man I'm tired. I just received Jimmy's interview for the DVD, so now I can finally finish it. While I was waiting on that I did a ton of little things to Pluh.com. I often go back and forth with that site not knowing what to do with it. I'd scrap, rebuild, take away, patch, scrap, etc. At this point I feel like I can keep adding to it, piece by piece, to get some serious results. Eventually I feel that we'll truly be able to deliver funny, high quality media at a consistent pace. All of us that work on that site had to go and do some "growing up" before we could commit to production. Little by little I aim to make it as memorable (and as popular) as Homestarrunner or Penny-Arcade.
For now though, I feel Psychostick will need my energy until the name alone carries it.
So everyone go do that election thing in a few days. Seems like the collective attention is caught by that event. Cool stuff.
One of those 3 AM blogs! I better get some rest because I've got tons of recording to do. Rawr.
Oh yeah, I also uploaded some VERY old Pluh.com videos onto my youtube account. Enjoy!
How many subject changes?
Whew. I'm at a crossroad with the DVD right now. Waiting on some footage, plus I've done most of all I can for Sandwich today... so I'm feeling like messing with some new features on Rawrb.com here. I figure I'll finish adding the photo album and then add a "reviews" section like I attempted to do on Psychostick and have done on Pluh.com.
I thought that initially having a reviews section would be cool for the band to review stuff or whatever, but I'm like the only guy that does that kind of stuff. Jake cruises myspace, Jimmy is on a computer twice a year, Alex watches bad movies, and Jarsh has pretty much had his fill of reviewing stuff on Pluh.com. He, much like myself, doesn't just like to write a review. We like to carve a masterpiece of humor at the expense of the thing/person/whatever that we're reviewing. We did that for several years on Pluh.com and lost interest to review stuff after awhile. Hell, at one point we had a record label contact and send us some bands to review. Trik Turner and The Color Red. Yeah. The Color Red was pretty good, but Trik Turner's tough guy rap/rock thing came out right when that genre was dying and I was extremely burnt out on it. I didn't review either of them.
At that point I decided I just can't review music. I'm very particular and have a hard time opening up to something new. My friends will often introduce bands to me and they almost have to force me to hear it for me to show interest! It's a flaw, I know. Part of it is because I'm IN a band and know what really goes on behind the scenes. There's just so much out there that it's the equivalent of drinking from a firehose.
It also makes me feel a bit hypocritical. I want people to discover Psychostick, but I don't discover new bands. Weird huh? I'll get a message on myspace every now and then from someone who wants me to hear their band. 49 times out of 50, I just don't. It's almost a knee-jerk reaction now. I feel bad about it too, but what do I do if I don't like the band? Tell them they suck? That hurts Psychostick's reputation! It's not fair really. So I just don't listen. What a jerk I am, huh?
For example, there was a local band here in Phoenix that Jarsh reviewed on Pluh.com a long time ago. They were a weird, somewhat popular local band that got all the good opening slots for all the big acts that came through. They had more of an image than a musical act which we didn't really enjoy, so Jarsh spoke him mind on the interweb.
One night after a show singer approaches me and Josh after a particular show and starts asking us about the bad review Josh put up. It was a very awkward situation and we were caught off guard, so we copped out, "Yeah I don't know who that Gawkman fellow is but we'll have a chat with him." Heh. We COULD have given in to the confrontation but it was such a weird deal to have someone call you out on your bad review on their band FROM A WEBSITE in person. It's not easy to take a bad review on your band and this guy was really upset (I won't mention the choice words Jarsh used to describe their image), but at that point we decided not to review bands any longer since we were a band and it could hurt the progress of our band. All those review were taken down.
Anyway, I will review just about anything else. A movie, a video game, a restaurant - just for the hell of it. I used to review chicks, but... heh, who wants to keep putting hot chicks on a pedistal? Not me. Let Maxim and Stuff Magazine do that. They can also keep giving out that "dating advice" from chicks to guys all night and day. Damn near every piece of advice you read from that mag on dating is way off. Asking a lady for dating advice? Hmm. I don't mean any offense to the ladies because they mean well, but I've never received a piece of advice from a lady that's worked really well for me. Our two genders are pretty much two different universes. You know, square peg in a round hole? Yeah. Heterosexual women generally do not date women like a man dates women, so they cannot understand the male perspective! It's not because they're unintelligent, it's just that we think differently. So guys, if you want good advice on dating women just ask a dude who dates a lot of women. They're doing something right.
That also goes for anything else you want. Wanna be filthy rich? Get advice from a rich person. Want to sell a million records? Get advice from those who know how.
Subject change galore. I'm gonna go program stuff now. Yay!
The Dumb is now The Done! Kind of.
*gasp*
I finally finished everything with The Dumb. Actually finishing a project is like crack. Getting to that crack is the tough part, but with some potential bugs that might creep up I can honestly say I'm finally 100% done with TheDumb.org's street team management system.
The Dumb is a website that is uniquely organize to assist in getting street teamers for Psychostick all the materials they need to promote. Sounds simple, right? On paper it is simple, but the logic between real world promotion and managing the promotion is not simple. Plus there has to be incentive. "What's in it for me?" When massing an army, or just leading a team of people, incentive is vital. Sometimes just acknowledgement is enough, but in the real world people need to see a light at the end of the tunnel for all their hard work. We're coming up with more rewards for the hard work, but for now we'll have backstage access, featured dumb t-shirts, and some others.
Now I can get back on track with the Psychostick DVD. I'm really looking forward to finishing that one. There's been a ton of pressure to get this thing done but more important stuff keeps pulling me away. NOW, between recording and some occasional artwork, I can divert the majority of my energy towards this thing. Fucking finally. It's coming folks so you just hang in there. I'm just glad to be crossing things off of my list.
Rawrb's tip on actually being productive: Get all that to-do stuff out of your head and on to paper! Make a list and cross things out as you complete them. You'll sleep better at night with all your ideas/to-dos/projects written down rather than swirling around in your head with the potential to be forgotten.
I had a couple more questions come in as well. I'll make that a separate blog!
The web's state of being.
Touring began for me about 2 years ago. Roughly around then I had expressed a ton of interest in taking Pluh.com in an entirely different direction. I had this idea - which is a great idea - that would hypothetically be the next myspace or facebook or whatever. I did some web maintenance work earlier today and started to think about my massive Pluh.com rebuild. I came to the conclusion that another facebook or myspace isn't want people need or even want. Why?
Because it's already there. It's already something that's grown into a supergiant. I originally believed that having a supergiant of a website is what I wanted as a web developer. Visions of advertising dollars coming in danced through my head. I can't imagine what kind of headache that would also entail. Servers upon servers of maintenance, having to regulate time to run a company of that magnitude, etc. That wasn't what got me rethinking my Pluh.com plans though. What got me moving was with my new idea, the real personality, the customization, and the charm of what I had originally envisioned would be gone. It'll be a massive application where people are herded around like cattle via mouseclicks and keyboard strokes. It kind of goes against why I do what I do.
I think the web is going into a different direction now, something beyond the scope of clicking around and poking friends. I'm not just a developer - I'm also an entertainer, and that's something I often lose sight of.
I think my original vision needs to be breathed back to life, but with a stronger foundation. People want to be entertained, not herded, and that's something I plan on implementing again. I have to start back at the drawing board, try some different stuff, etc.
I won't toss aside my other ideas though. Who knows, I may find a better use for them.
Multisubjectland!
I've been working on the new Pluh.com here and there when I find time on this here tour. I used to try and work on it in a shaky van with stupid band jerks, but gave up on that when I contantly hit wrong keys during coding or precise graphics editing ended up being like performing sugery while skydiving. So what is the new Pluh.com about? Not so much I can divuldge yet due to a somewhat original concept that I can't wait to roll out. There have been many times I've had to go back and clean up old code that this new framework I'm developing will be super easy to update, add features, etc.
Pluh.com has always been a fun-yet-frustrating battle. Just when I think I've got it figured out, I hit a wall or something else comes up. The editor-driven setup doesn't work because it's all volunteer based. How on earth can one keep a staff of voluteers motivated to update a website every day? It's possible, but change is constantly moving that they often get pulled away into something else, like... LIFE for example. Kids, marriage, jobs, whatever. Nothing wrong with any of those of course.
So a whole new approach has been adopted on my end.
Crap, I gotta run. Show in New Port Richey, Florida tonight. Oh yeah!
More touring, and big plans.
Got a question that came in. I get 'em sometimes and I respond directly, but this makes me look oh-so-good.
Name: fats mcfats
Subject: in-genious?
Question: how in the fuck do you switch from PS to EC. i mean fuck id think it gets confusing to me but you pull them shits off lkike its nothing...is it a natural talent or an in-genious way of having pure luck and fury my man....either way they both jam the fuck off my asshole and whatnot....by the way, your vvoie is amazing, bro...thats what got me into the stick in the first place...noit just BEER which owns everything...anyway i make no sense man peace
Well, thanks for the compliments. Switching isn't exactly something I try to think about I guess. It's more or less just "Hey Rawrb, we need to record this shit!" And there I am. There was about 6 or 7 years of experience behind those recordings, so it didn't happen overnight. Rawr.
Tour is getting better this time 'round - it started off a bit slow but picked up after Oklahoma. Shocking! Sorry Okieland, but you guys need some love in your music scene. Or, maybe it's something else? Who knows. Next time we're coming through there you will all know about it somehow.
I also have big plans outside of the band. It's a personal endeavor that I decided to pursue after I attended my grandfather's funeral. When death becomes a part of one's life, I think it's natural to want to make sure you live life to the fullest. So here I go, and them thar chips will fall where they may.
Stupid rock and hard place.
I've been involved in web development for roughly 10 years now. I recall my very first venture into that crazy newfangled technology known as the internet and "web pages." Angelfire! That was where I had my first website. Then I moved to Geocities, then... uhm, I think I got my own domain? Can't remember much.
Anyway, up until 3 or 4 years ago I had considered web development a hobby. It comes very easily to me, and I find it to be very enjoyable. I had no idea how valuable the skill was up until I went to work for a smaller company a couple of years ago. I was stunned at how much my boss was charging clients for what I considered simple. Then it occured to me - it's not SIMPLE to them. They're paying for a service they don't want to bother with.
That made a ton of sense. For instance, why would *I* try and fix a messed up cluster of pipes underneath my sink and in my wall when I cold pay someone to do it? Not only that, they're good at it, experienced, and will do a far better job than I could with my severe lack of knowledge. The exact same thing applies to web development. Why would someone with very little interest in web dev want to bother with it when they could pay someone to build their site, to their specifications, and do it right the first time?
Then I started to appreciate my skill and experience so much more.
So the message I wanted to clarify here is: Web development, especially in the professional realm, is NOT something that's just slapped together. There's a science behind it. If someone offers to build you a website, and they do a good job, pay them handsomely. You get an awesome website, they get paid, everybody wins.
That's how it should be.
*sigh*
No more favors. From now on I charge full price to everyone. Don't like it? Go buy some templates and slap something together. You get what you pay for.
Taking out the trash.
I've been home for a few weeks now from touring. I'm usually the busiest when we're not touring due to all the stuff that piles up. Preparing for the next tour takes precedence, then comes new merch designs. We got our store back up, which is really good, but more options are needed. We're also looking into accepting credit and debit cards at shows. Once I get a few more time sensitive stuff wrapped up, I'm gonna tackle that one.
Posters, done. Flyers, done. Website revisions, mostly done. The rest are just sprinkles on the e-cupcake that is Psychostick.com.
*long pause*
I miss writing. E-cupcake. That's just awesome.
*even longer pause*
Now I gotta get all philosphical.
Sometimes the answers come just as quickly as the questions. Seems that all the weird little concerns that I had since I've been home have been pretty much solved or simply dismissed. Now there's another phase I've moved into, which is more of an attempt to take a much closer look at my thoughts and where I'm going. I'm not about to go into specifics, but I simply must mention how grateful I am to having the friends that I have. It's nice knowing that no matter what happens with me, or how dumb I get, they've got my back.
"Don't worry about the future. It'll get here soon enough." - Albert Einstein
One interesting outlook is how far away "normal" life seems to be. How easy would it be to go back to that? It's easy to get a job with a fixed income. EASY. Compared to co-running this band, it's about as easy as breathing. The reassuring thing is that I'm never alone in this massive endeavor, especially since the really hard part has long since past. If I fell, I would be picked right back up. Even if this band things falls apart for whatever reason, I will be able to take any idea and turn it into something huge. It's freaking awesome knowing that.
Is being comfortable and "safe" worth risking your happiness over? You can have your cake and eat it too. Whomever said you can't needs a face-punching.
As I "take out the trash," I'll probably be blogging about it. Of course, blogging has a funny way of not being rhetorical, or just simply one-sided. I get a bit misunderstood... but I can understand how.
"Hey, I read your blog. You okay?"
Yes yes yes, I'm just fine.
A few closing thoughts:
- Buffy is such a stupid show, but I really enjoy it.
- Where the HELL is Dragon Quest IV DS? It's already TRANSLATED.
- Warcraft 3 = Sex
- Most DVD menu templates are lame.
- Stevie Wonder is a badass.
- Tech N9ne is amazing.
- I'm pretty sure age is just a number.
- Jagermeister loves us.
That's all.
Accountability and you!
Wow, what a tour. I didn't blog once at all on this crazy "Holy Crap We're Touring" tour. Our wireless card just broke down, so... I dunno. Lots of things need fixing when I get back home.
You can view various incidents with our trailer if you want to see how much crap we dealt with. The trailer went through 3 tires, 1 wheel, one axle, and one trailer jack. JUST during this tour. Of course, most of those incidents our manager was driving, so he received a lot of shit.
"Captain Jack-knife 180 Negativeface Roadripper" became his name. Thanks to Jimmy for taking initiative on that one.
We also lost a staff member. By "lost" I mean "let go." I ain't mentioning names or particular incidents, but I will talk about the whole professionalism aspect, which was up and down.
For starters, it's always better to talk to people on the phone about things like this rather than send an e-mail. Sounds like common sense, but we justified it rather stupidly. That was dumb on our part, regardless of how some of my friends argue the point. My defense for it was, this staff member was the type of person that was horrible at taking critisizm of any kind. They'd get real defensive and blame outside incidents even though the job wasn't getting done.
That trait is a BAD one. Accountability (which is the abililty to take responsibility for one's actions without excuse) is so important when you're running a business. Hell, even when you're working under someone. Just life in general.
Let's say, for example, you're working a job that assembles reports for your department. Your sole purpose is to gather statistics and reports and present them to your manager. One day you're in a rush, and you leave the reports sitting on your boss's desk.
When the reports are due, your boss asks you, "Where are your reports? They're late."
You respond, "Oh, I left them on your desk."
He responds, "I never did receive them."
You could easily try to make more excuses. Your boss could have misplaced them, thrown them away, blah blah blah. At this point it doesn't matter - your job isn't getting done. What matters is that you need to get those reports in his hand.
Best response: "I'll re-print them and put them in your hand. Give me a few minutes."
No excuses, no whining, no putting the blame on someone or something else. You took responsibility and fixed the problem.
Excuses and finger-pointing are lame. The people you work for don't care about any of that crap - they care about the job not getting done. They're not paying you to try and weasel your way out of a situation.
Just imagine - someone is working for you and you NEED them to do their part, otherwise your whole business is staggering. So this person starts to fail in many areas, and the excuses start flowing in.
"They haven't called me back yet."
"The copier is out of ink."
"My computer is really slow."
"I wasn't feeling good that day."
"I didn't get a lot of sleep last night."
What do you do? Your business is suffering! Eventually you have to step in and either fire and replace this person or take everything on yourself.
Of course, along with the excuses can come those who get really defensive when you critique them constructively. These types will have a much harder time succeeding in their field. Why? Think about this - how hard is it to approach someone and help them if their defense is always up.
Let's observe the obvious here: People who are like what I just mentioned are not easy to work with. If you're aspiring for success, it's far greater to keep them far and away from your business or even your personal life. What's another obvious aspect? You will never be able to change them. It's just as futile as trying to change a significant other to meet your standards. People you can't change, but you can change your situation for the better.
The tour goes well!
Everything is going so crazy awesome that I haven't really had any time to do anything outside of touring. Shaky van syndrome and shows every day = lack of everything.
I especially love it when I keep getting asked for video clips and stuff while I'm on the road. Yeah, where and how am I supposed to do that? I'm on a LAPTOP. I have an external drive, but jeez, ripping video takes time. They're just gonna have to wait.
There's a lot more being asked of me too that I'm just astonished they think I can do these things. It's the lack of them knowing what the road is like, which is tough to convey to those.
It's like this. You know what it's like when you've been traveling all day, like on a plane of a bus, right? How tiring that is? Multiply that by eight, then go nuts on a stage, then do it 30 to 60 times in a row. That's what it's like.
But it's fun as hell. Strange how that works, no?
Spambots are breaking through my image verification. *sigh* I'd like to violently rip out the innards of those who write spambots. I hope I never meet one. Rather, they should hope to never meet me. :)
*pant pant punch*
Jeez, the last couple of weeks my freelance work has picked up and I've just wrapped two projects, and am about to start a simple one. Then next week I'll finally be able to focus on Psychostick stuff full time, like those videos I boasted about below. Hah... yeah. We shot the footage and I just ripped all of it, but haven't done anything with it yet due to me putting the energy needed into finishing these last couple of freelance jobs.
I'm hoping this tour will have a stupendous amount of success so that I don't have to do as much freelance work. That'd be nice!
Ok, gotta finish this stuff. Lots to talk about, so I'll be back latawr!
Video is good. So good.
My buddy Murph and I talked for over an hour last night about videos. Not specifically for Psychostick, but we brewed a lot of ideas on how to promote the band using some hilarious video shorts. Obviously ideas have never been a problem (well, maybe not that obvious to you), but planning, organization, management, etc. has always been a problem. A few years back Murph would fly down to visit us and we'd have all these ideas, but no planning in place, so nothing ever got done.
We wanted to make a parody RPG. We got about 10% done with it.
We wanted to shoot tons of awesome video shorts along these lines. Never happened.
"I'm surprised we actually finished the dumb song," Murph says.
I do believe that's been the only completed project that any of the Pluh.com staff actually 100% completed, aside from actual reviews. Of course we don't blame ourselves; our lack of planning and organization was the main issue. Now that we recognize and have a bit more overall maturity, I have absolute faith we'll get more created.
Of course, one thing I won't do now is annouce the project publically before it's underway or even completed. That way people looking forward to it won't get pissed if we have to delay it or it never gets done.
Now to start planning...
Pluh.net - An opportunity I didn't see.
With all this web dev going on one of my clients has to switch hosts because her current host won't set her up with permissions she needs to upload images though a php script. Yeah, I don't get it. So I offered to host her. Then I realized I'm not even using Pluh.net for anything worthwhile. Idea! I know this is more common than salt in a bowl of potato chips (awesome analogy), but why not offer hosting to those who want? My server never EVER goes down and I know my setup very well.
I are smart.
So if you want to be hosted, contact me here for now. My rates aren't online yet, but once I get some stuff figured out I'll pop it up there. Hurrawr!