Bingo - wired was really wrong with their last 2.0 column. They posted the results before the last 2.05 billion figure came out in the Merc's coverage of the fund leaders. The spigots started pouring after google's insane ROI, but given the volume of posts on C-List alone it's just getting started. I'm fielding 2-3 callbacks a week, and I don't even have space for more than one more part-time client.
I'm hoping that a bubble is somewhat diffused by sane growth that I've seen inside start-ups to date, but if the green pours too much there'll be plenty of nuts to watch roast.
The NYT and The Merc both already had coverage last fall of some of the investor fallout from pent-up money combined with low-overhead startups. 2.05 billion was thrown around the Bay Area in quarter of 2005 (representing 40% of nationwide VC spending - NY was 2nd at 12%) but it wasn't easy. Firms in Palo Alto were turning down money offers from longer than lunch hour away commutes - and I've seen VC cold-calls come in at 2 off my contracting clients (seriously).
But when companies can make do with 250,000 instead of 20 million whatchagonnado?
This gives me no small measure of hope that something different might be emerging.
The PS2 launch for instance was a disaster. I strongly suspect that the PS3 will be just as bad - if not worse. If the 360 had an expectation boat-anchor around it's neck, then the PS3's neck might as well be tied to the Titanic. But the reality is far more interesting AFTER launch. Which is where it really gets painful for the 360 at present.
For instance, I could pine on how cool it was to be in line at launch in San Francisco (in October) and the food services that were provided for people as wll as the line holder passes that allowed hundreds of game geeks to decend en-masse into the nearest bars at the Metreon. But the "real" news was within a year games like GTA appeared on a game console that was a previous seasonal must-have / couldn't-get.
The launch line-up wasn't stellar - but SSX and others at least made the system look credible and was enough to cause Sega to pull their plug in short-order. A decent genuine buzz hasn't happened yet on the Xbox side outside of manufactured marketing. But then I don't write anyone off in their first year generally - unless you're Infinium Labs Inc. - in which case you're doomed doomed doomed - doomed doomed - comma comma - doomed.
All of these observations and facts are a far cry from somone's "gut". Not excluding PR farts - which of course the media is inhaling deeply at the moment.
"Some feel" that if you injest sufficient quantities of illegal drugs you can physically fly off buildings.
"Some feel" isn't news. Let me know when supposition is replaced with something better. Otherwise let me start cranking out headlines around here. "Some (nut-jobs who fell off their meds in SF) feel" that President Bush is actually an evil twin of Steve Jobs - capable not only of distorting reality - but the very fabric of space and time. If they were to physically come in contact with each other the universe as we know it, would end.
re:" Just as the other examples, music, novels, movies. Its just that they dont affect people in an adverse way."
Right - people who read books would never start wars, decimate Europe's Jewish polulation, destroy the lives of millions.
Like the Bible did.
Nope videogames are far worse than books.
Then of course there's Movies & TV - where a massive chunk of Los Angeles went up in flames just over 12 years ago because of some video tape of a man being "provided due rights" by the LAPD.
But videogames are far worse than TV.
And of course the plight of the dust bowl in the great depression was never given decent coverage because of all those puffery folk-songs that are otherwise wholly forgetable - like the national anthem.
But videogames are far more reaching than music.
But don't worry - China makes wonderful internet filters for you to get rid of all that pesky media that you don't like, and provides untold hurt on the general public. I'm sure the Christian soldiers are perfecting their servers this very minute.
I'm so glad the government is keeping my precious virgin snow-white mind safe from nefarious video games and naughty books, movies and tv - instead of - you know, catching people who slaughtered oh - say 3000 people in New York and Washington DC as well as preventing future attacks.
But hey - fucking video games - we got that shit so under control.
SOE was interesting initially from the standpoint of the sheer amount of stuff going on without framerate drop - and it seemed vicerally fun at first, but the camera pretty much sunk it for me. It needed more top-down - or at least the option to see more from above ala Robotron to be seriously playable.
The game's plot also got severely neutered to the point of being just plain bizzare. Initally it was a mere riot - not some "overthrow the facist state" bs. That was put in much later into the dev cycle when Rockstar got nervous. The missions were also no more engaging than the lowliest side missions of GTA - to the point that they seemed merely tacked on to try to elevate it to the GTA franchise at the last minute. If it were true to the roots of being mindless mayhem fun, then I'd be less prone to bashing it (your crazy taxi comparisson). But Rockstar did in fact attempt to gleam elements from GTA to try to "fix" the game - thus turning it into an ungodly mess.
I think someone else refered to all the tack-ons and last minute design by commitee as "turd polishing", which in this case, is a very spot on metaphor.
GT-ping pong? Riiiiight. If Rockstar North was producing it - then it would be an apt comentary. This is just fishing for a headline for entertainment purposes (what? from the fucking news?! color me shocked!).
This is the same crappola that even Rockstar foisted when trying to unload stinkbombs outside the GTA franchise by claiming "from the same people who brought you Grand Theft Auto". I still recall the "If you loved Grand Theft Auto - then you'll love" marketing tripe for promos hyping the ubber turd "State of Emergency".
And did everyone notice - that not "one" reviewer of video games made mention of "The Warriors" being an obvious and similarly boring repackaging of "Manhunt"? When did the collective balls of the so-called video game journalists undrop? Can anyone answer me this? I'm guessing sometime when sophisticated writ-large emerged claiming I'd "crap my pants" about some pixel snooze.
On the other hand I wish I could cash paychecks based on my ability to receive PR faxes from companies and transcribe them word for word for my "previews" and "reviews". Nice job if you can get it.
That's an interesting point. I used to rag on Apple when they were putting out "knowledge navigator" videos a the same time NeXT was introducing their first products (which themselves were overhyped for the time but of course would encompass what the mac is today). Now it's Microsoft doing the same thing - reintroducing the OQO in this case:
I've got a Donkey Kong and Two Pac-Man machines taking up space in my living room right now. I've always prided myself on being ahead of the trend-curve - and dammit - I still gots it baby!
Now I can justify getting 4 more machines to my sig-other. Oh honey? We need to remodel the living room some more - I'm thinking Sinistar and Robotron. Whaddya think? Honey?....Honey?
NYC has rent control too. But with 9 million people expected in 6 years, I don't think a few rent-squatters is the problem. Just a part of it. But yes the regulatory hoops is nuts. I've got a project literally across the street from me that is - once again - on hiatus as they more than likely are in a wait period from all the red-tape that goes with redeveloping a "historic" property. It's so historic it looks like something from Berlin circa April of 1945. A historic rubble pile at the moment.
But consider this - I live in Emeryville - which less than 10 years ago was filled with blocks of buildings that were essentially condemmed blight. Now from the latest reports from City Hall, we're nearly built out. That build-out happened in the middle of the melt-down. The last remaining loft projects - of which there are no fewer than 4 which are less than a year old - on my block are filling fast.
And we don't have rent-control either.
Just across the boundary line (Emeryvlle is a scant 1.2 miles large) in Oakland the last crack houses have been vacated because the property owners are flipping shacks for more than half a million. Kansas City we're not.
Well, certainly there's tons of contracting options I can vouch for that. Most of the "second-wave" companies are still at the card-table stages, and aren't in a rush to expand until their revenue models take-hold (or until a major investment comes along). That suits me just fine. I'd rather see new tech jobs grow more organically than the last wave which hired and fired very - very quickly.
My afternoon client is doubling in size in the next 60 days, and a previous client in the same buidling has trippled in size (and hired the building manager among other people. Anyone who gets near them seems to get sucked in (oh yes - they stole our receptionist too).
Is this the case with everyone? No - but the SF market has a lot of new companies to chose from. Not as stable as secure as an entrenched one - but they need bodies it seems. I predict a full-blown 1999 labor crunch in a year given the callbacks I'm getting (at least 2 a week - and I'm not really looking right now - I've got 2 contracts a day and 3 clients in a given week, plus 2nd tier leads that already have a place in line) and I'm not even wanting to work 40 hours a week. I came out here to paint.
Not everyone's story, but man, if this is "just getting there" or " false hype" I'd go nuts having to deal with the real-thing.
The housing bubble is real - don't get me wrong on that - but I'm not certain the Bay Area market is going to back down any more than, say, Manhatten. Given the general growth further eastward and northward, I'd say the penisula and the city are pretty much built out with the exception of some high-priced projects that I'm watching spring up in the city.
If the housing bubble cools in the rest of the country (and given the last 15 years of data - I'm not certain how much "cooling" we'll ever see unless interest rates climb to unheard of levels) I'm fairly certain the Bay Area - like NYC won't see nearly as much of an impact.
Now Los Angeles, and other over-hot markets? Sure. I think SF is following London, Tokyo, and other areas footsteps. If the last deep recessions couldn't topple housing prices in the Bay Area - what's going to do it appart from some bad-loan foreclosures? I haven't seen any HUD sales in the SF region so I think the dreams of a melt-down went when the dot-com 1.0 bubble burst - and nothing happened.
But that's just observational thoery - perhaps a good strong earthquake will push things down like post 1989. But that also was a very short dip.
One other footnote - aside from the massive build-up in the pennisula in the last 30 years, SF has never had as much housing as it did around 1948. The urban renewel programs that plowed under affordable housing by the truck-load in the late 60s and early 70s removed a large swath of housing options in SF. The funny thing is, the population of SF is about the same as it was at it's height during WWII and shortly afterwards. If the population continues to grow (a not too unwarrented expectation with dotcom 2.0 in full swing), I don't see the supply-demand problem going away anytime soon - nor the prices that go with it.
The article is about an exhibition in New York, and profiles an artist from LA. Since you don't read the data I provide - I'd say STFU with my similarly mad person people skillz.
I love it when geeks try to generalize about a field they have no clue about. Very entertaining.
Glad I can make money without pissing on how other people do it. But then I'm just weird I guess. Good luck with your people skills - they'll take you far.
So you're using the metric of a handfull of pro-baseball contracts to compare to 99.99999999999 (pause for breath) 99999999999 percent of the jobs in CA and all other right-to-work states - and most of the planet for that matter.
M-kay. I'm an idiot. I'll have to defer the plight of the average wage earner to Hollywood, the music industry, and pro-sports. Color me stupid. The market is doing great for full timers in the movie industry and baseball. No doubt.
And you're surprised by layoffs? Seriously? Uh, you did read a paper in the last 5 years right? Those things called unemployment figures? Those were full-time jobs last I checked. Emphasis on "were". But hey - job position for life must be rampant in your company. I'll send a fax to the UAW workers that have been shit-canned that your group is hiring for life.
Amazing things in your world! Simply amazing!
I may not have a "real-job" but I get paid for every hour of "real-work". Real is not subjective in my work. That goes double for those cheesy companies that believe a 4 hour revenue costing interview is a favor. Kiss my hourly ass or pay the fucking invoice HR biotch! I don't work for free like some "full-timers" I know.
OH sure the fine-art market is the having the most lucritive long-term earnings streak in history. But MEH and FEH! What do they know. Sotherby's MEH. Whitney - a pittance. Nothing but bums. Galleries in SF? Give me a break. And to hell with LA and New York. Cow towns the lot of em. Galleries there don't know SQUAT. And the new museums in the Bay Area? The one's that attracted the Royals from England? A total ruse. Don't be fooled.
MEH!
But please - keep the stereotypes flying. The less competition for me the better.
May not be a "real-job" by your rules - but the money is real enough for me.
I guess I'll have to just envy you when I decide to take a half-day off for no reason, work as many or as few hours as I want, and get paid for every hour I work instead of those lovely crunch-time weeks and weekends and all that unpaid overtime. The rush hour headaches, the 9-5 grind. The endless corporate dullness.
God I envy you. No wait...
In other news, I particularly liked "Guaranteed contract?" part.
Um - last I checked - CA was a right to work state. Did you get some cradle-to-grave thing I'm unaware of? When I was full-time I never saw anything "Guaranteed". Layoffs and downsizing - I saw plenty of that. In the last 5 years quite a bit actually.
If you want to contract and have "security" do what I do. Get more than one client. Most service businesses do that kinda stuff. Most that failed - only had one client, or had a single client that represented far too much income risk.
But hey - contractors are meaningless! The money? Meh! It's only money. You have a "real-job"! Keep telling yourself that when the next reorg happens. Like Oracle. They have about 2000 fewer "real-jobs" than a month ago. I can only hope the layoffees don't go into contracting but persist in scrambling for more "real-jobs". It means more money for me.
I'll tell my neighbors from Pixar to move the hell out then. Damn cheapskate freeloaders. Disney threw a wad of cash at them - HA - they're still poorer than dirt farmers the lot of em. 7 billion - HA! HA I say! Oh sure they have some computer people - but that drawing thing - meh! and FEH!
re:"I've been living in San Francisco for going on two years now and have yet to meet anyone who is working in a "Web" or "e-commerce" job up here"
Don't know what part of SF you're in - but in SOMA and Mission Bay you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a dot-commer or overhearing a dot-com conversation.
Where are you - the Tenderloin? Seriously I think the new economy is ditching you. Cheese it - it's Yeechang! Everyone stop doing dot-com work!
Check out Valleywag for a small indicator of SF tech businesses - and I can vouch that my contracting with start-ups indicates that this map is very much out of date:
Slashdot Mirror
Bingo - wired was really wrong with their last 2.0 column. They posted the results before the last 2.05 billion figure came out in the Merc's coverage of the fund leaders. The spigots started pouring after google's insane ROI, but given the volume of posts on C-List alone it's just getting started. I'm fielding 2-3 callbacks a week, and I don't even have space for more than one more part-time client.
I'm hoping that a bubble is somewhat diffused by sane growth that I've seen inside start-ups to date, but if the green pours too much there'll be plenty of nuts to watch roast.
The NYT and The Merc both already had coverage last fall of some of the investor fallout from pent-up money combined with low-overhead startups. 2.05 billion was thrown around the Bay Area in quarter of 2005 (representing 40% of nationwide VC spending - NY was 2nd at 12%) but it wasn't easy. Firms in Palo Alto were turning down money offers from longer than lunch hour away commutes - and I've seen VC cold-calls come in at 2 off my contracting clients (seriously).
But when companies can make do with 250,000 instead of 20 million whatchagonnado?
This gives me no small measure of hope that something different might be emerging.
Devil + Details = All me baby!
This ain't Digg.
The PS2 launch for instance was a disaster. I strongly suspect that the PS3 will be just as bad - if not worse. If the 360 had an expectation boat-anchor around it's neck, then the PS3's neck might as well be tied to the Titanic. But the reality is far more interesting AFTER launch. Which is where it really gets painful for the 360 at present.
For instance, I could pine on how cool it was to be in line at launch in San Francisco (in October) and the food services that were provided for people as wll as the line holder passes that allowed hundreds of game geeks to decend en-masse into the nearest bars at the Metreon. But the "real" news was within a year games like GTA appeared on a game console that was a previous seasonal must-have / couldn't-get.
The launch line-up wasn't stellar - but SSX and others at least made the system look credible and was enough to cause Sega to pull their plug in short-order. A decent genuine buzz hasn't happened yet on the Xbox side outside of manufactured marketing. But then I don't write anyone off in their first year generally - unless you're Infinium Labs Inc. - in which case you're doomed doomed doomed - doomed doomed - comma comma - doomed.
All of these observations and facts are a far cry from somone's "gut". Not excluding PR farts - which of course the media is inhaling deeply at the moment.
Gut feeling?
Why not facts?
Take the fact that the PS2 came out in October of 2000 - not November for instance...
I was in line on launch day - but you can also check Wikipedia also.
Not sure an 89 million dollar speedbump would get in the way of a multibillion dollar rollout.
It'd be akin to halting the rollout of a new car because the hubcaps aren't paid for.
re:"some feel may force Apple..."
"Some feel?"
"Some feel" that if you injest sufficient quantities of illegal drugs you can physically fly off buildings.
"Some feel" isn't news. Let me know when supposition is replaced with something better. Otherwise let me start cranking out headlines around here. "Some (nut-jobs who fell off their meds in SF) feel" that President Bush is actually an evil twin of Steve Jobs - capable not only of distorting reality - but the very fabric of space and time. If they were to physically come in contact with each other the universe as we know it, would end.
There. Slashdot Pulitzer Prize baby!
re:" Just as the other examples, music, novels, movies. Its just that they dont affect people in an adverse way."
Right - people who read books would never start wars, decimate Europe's Jewish polulation, destroy the lives of millions.
Like the Bible did.
Nope videogames are far worse than books.
Then of course there's Movies & TV - where a massive chunk of Los Angeles went up in flames just over 12 years ago because of some video tape of a man being "provided due rights" by the LAPD.
But videogames are far worse than TV.
And of course the plight of the dust bowl in the great depression was never given decent coverage because of all those puffery folk-songs that are otherwise wholly forgetable - like the national anthem.
But videogames are far more reaching than music.
But don't worry - China makes wonderful internet filters for you to get rid of all that pesky media that you don't like, and provides untold hurt on the general public. I'm sure the Christian soldiers are perfecting their servers this very minute.
Bozo screams that he won't buy another platform for watching movies - blows smoke about Vista - and says "fuck you".
Instant +5 Insightful baby!
He should knock-em dead on Wikipeidia. Zounds! I'm astounded by the blinding insight.
- oh yes, almost forgot - fuck you. There now I'm fucking Einstein too.
When did this place devolve to digg? Someone tell me - please.
I'm so glad the government is keeping my precious virgin snow-white mind safe from nefarious video games and naughty books, movies and tv - instead of - you know, catching people who slaughtered oh - say 3000 people in New York and Washington DC as well as preventing future attacks.
But hey - fucking video games - we got that shit so under control.
Osama must be laughing his beard off.
SOE was interesting initially from the standpoint of the sheer amount of stuff going on without framerate drop - and it seemed vicerally fun at first, but the camera pretty much sunk it for me. It needed more top-down - or at least the option to see more from above ala Robotron to be seriously playable.
The game's plot also got severely neutered to the point of being just plain bizzare. Initally it was a mere riot - not some "overthrow the facist state" bs. That was put in much later into the dev cycle when Rockstar got nervous. The missions were also no more engaging than the lowliest side missions of GTA - to the point that they seemed merely tacked on to try to elevate it to the GTA franchise at the last minute. If it were true to the roots of being mindless mayhem fun, then I'd be less prone to bashing it (your crazy taxi comparisson). But Rockstar did in fact attempt to gleam elements from GTA to try to "fix" the game - thus turning it into an ungodly mess.
I think someone else refered to all the tack-ons and last minute design by commitee as "turd polishing", which in this case, is a very spot on metaphor.
GT-ping pong? Riiiiight. If Rockstar North was producing it - then it would be an apt comentary. This is just fishing for a headline for entertainment purposes (what? from the fucking news?! color me shocked!).
This is the same crappola that even Rockstar foisted when trying to unload stinkbombs outside the GTA franchise by claiming "from the same people who brought you Grand Theft Auto". I still recall the "If you loved Grand Theft Auto - then you'll love" marketing tripe for promos hyping the ubber turd "State of Emergency".
And did everyone notice - that not "one" reviewer of video games made mention of "The Warriors" being an obvious and similarly boring repackaging of "Manhunt"? When did the collective balls of the so-called video game journalists undrop? Can anyone answer me this? I'm guessing sometime when sophisticated writ-large emerged claiming I'd "crap my pants" about some pixel snooze.
On the other hand I wish I could cash paychecks based on my ability to receive PR faxes from companies and transcribe them word for word for my "previews" and "reviews". Nice job if you can get it.
That's an interesting point. I used to rag on Apple when they were putting out "knowledge navigator" videos a the same time NeXT was introducing their first products (which themselves were overhyped for the time but of course would encompass what the mac is today). Now it's Microsoft doing the same thing - reintroducing the OQO in this case:
http://www.oqo.com/
Another consideration - everyone thought the iPod was nothing but hype for another expensive mp3 player when it came out...
So new we have an active refienery in the US.
t ion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymeriza
At least Japan knows how to PR the tech - you never hear about it here - which is just sad.
I've got a Donkey Kong and Two Pac-Man machines taking up space in my living room right now. I've always prided myself on being ahead of the trend-curve - and dammit - I still gots it baby!
Now I can justify getting 4 more machines to my sig-other. Oh honey? We need to remodel the living room some more - I'm thinking Sinistar and Robotron. Whaddya think? Honey?....Honey?
NYC has rent control too. But with 9 million people expected in 6 years, I don't think a few rent-squatters is the problem. Just a part of it. But yes the regulatory hoops is nuts. I've got a project literally across the street from me that is - once again - on hiatus as they more than likely are in a wait period from all the red-tape that goes with redeveloping a "historic" property. It's so historic it looks like something from Berlin circa April of 1945. A historic rubble pile at the moment.
But consider this - I live in Emeryville - which less than 10 years ago was filled with blocks of buildings that were essentially condemmed blight. Now from the latest reports from City Hall, we're nearly built out. That build-out happened in the middle of the melt-down. The last remaining loft projects - of which there are no fewer than 4 which are less than a year old - on my block are filling fast.
And we don't have rent-control either.
Just across the boundary line (Emeryvlle is a scant 1.2 miles large) in Oakland the last crack houses have been vacated because the property owners are flipping shacks for more than half a million. Kansas City we're not.
Well, certainly there's tons of contracting options I can vouch for that. Most of the "second-wave" companies are still at the card-table stages, and aren't in a rush to expand until their revenue models take-hold (or until a major investment comes along). That suits me just fine. I'd rather see new tech jobs grow more organically than the last wave which hired and fired very - very quickly.
My afternoon client is doubling in size in the next 60 days, and a previous client in the same buidling has trippled in size (and hired the building manager among other people. Anyone who gets near them seems to get sucked in (oh yes - they stole our receptionist too).
Is this the case with everyone? No - but the SF market has a lot of new companies to chose from. Not as stable as secure as an entrenched one - but they need bodies it seems. I predict a full-blown 1999 labor crunch in a year given the callbacks I'm getting (at least 2 a week - and I'm not really looking right now - I've got 2 contracts a day and 3 clients in a given week, plus 2nd tier leads that already have a place in line) and I'm not even wanting to work 40 hours a week. I came out here to paint.
Not everyone's story, but man, if this is "just getting there" or " false hype" I'd go nuts having to deal with the real-thing.
The housing bubble is real - don't get me wrong on that - but I'm not certain the Bay Area market is going to back down any more than, say, Manhatten. Given the general growth further eastward and northward, I'd say the penisula and the city are pretty much built out with the exception of some high-priced projects that I'm watching spring up in the city.
If the housing bubble cools in the rest of the country (and given the last 15 years of data - I'm not certain how much "cooling" we'll ever see unless interest rates climb to unheard of levels) I'm fairly certain the Bay Area - like NYC won't see nearly as much of an impact.
Now Los Angeles, and other over-hot markets? Sure. I think SF is following London, Tokyo, and other areas footsteps. If the last deep recessions couldn't topple housing prices in the Bay Area - what's going to do it appart from some bad-loan foreclosures? I haven't seen any HUD sales in the SF region so I think the dreams of a melt-down went when the dot-com 1.0 bubble burst - and nothing happened.
But that's just observational thoery - perhaps a good strong earthquake will push things down like post 1989. But that also was a very short dip.
One other footnote - aside from the massive build-up in the pennisula in the last 30 years, SF has never had as much housing as it did around 1948. The urban renewel programs that plowed under affordable housing by the truck-load in the late 60s and early 70s removed a large swath of housing options in SF. The funny thing is, the population of SF is about the same as it was at it's height during WWII and shortly afterwards. If the population continues to grow (a not too unwarrented expectation with dotcom 2.0 in full swing), I don't see the supply-demand problem going away anytime soon - nor the prices that go with it.
The article is about an exhibition in New York, and profiles an artist from LA. Since you don't read the data I provide - I'd say STFU with my similarly mad person people skillz.
I love it when geeks try to generalize about a field they have no clue about. Very entertaining.
Glad I can make money without pissing on how other people do it.
But then I'm just weird I guess. Good luck with your people skills - they'll take you far.
And there's only 100 artists between NYC., LA, and SF making money. You're beating me to a pulp stop it. Please.
Instead of the tree - check out the forest, then get back in touch.
So you're using the metric of a handfull of pro-baseball contracts to compare to 99.99999999999 (pause for breath) 99999999999 percent of the jobs in CA and all other right-to-work states - and most of the planet for that matter.
M-kay. I'm an idiot. I'll have to defer the plight of the average wage earner to Hollywood, the music industry, and pro-sports. Color me stupid. The market is doing great for full timers in the movie industry and baseball. No doubt.
And you're surprised by layoffs? Seriously? Uh, you did read a paper in the last 5 years right? Those things called unemployment figures? Those were full-time jobs last I checked. Emphasis on "were". But hey - job position for life must be rampant in your company. I'll send a fax to the UAW workers that have been shit-canned that your group is hiring for life.
Amazing things in your world! Simply amazing!
I may not have a "real-job" but I get paid for every hour of "real-work". Real is not subjective in my work. That goes double for those cheesy companies that believe a 4 hour revenue costing interview is a favor. Kiss my hourly ass or pay the fucking invoice HR biotch! I don't work for free like some "full-timers" I know.
For the man who likes things linkey:
k /
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11569842/site/newswee
OH sure the fine-art market is the having the most lucritive long-term earnings streak in history. But MEH and FEH! What do they know. Sotherby's MEH. Whitney - a pittance. Nothing but bums. Galleries in SF? Give me a break. And to hell with LA and New York. Cow towns the lot of em. Galleries there don't know SQUAT. And the new museums in the Bay Area? The one's that attracted the Royals from England? A total ruse. Don't be fooled.
MEH!
But please - keep the stereotypes flying. The less competition for me the better.
May not be a "real-job" by your rules - but the money is real enough for me.
I guess I'll have to just envy you when I decide to take a half-day off for no reason, work as many or as few hours as I want, and get paid for every hour I work instead of those lovely crunch-time weeks and weekends and all that unpaid overtime. The rush hour headaches, the 9-5 grind. The endless corporate dullness.
God I envy you. No wait...
In other news, I particularly liked "Guaranteed contract?" part.
Um - last I checked - CA was a right to work state. Did you get some cradle-to-grave thing I'm unaware of? When I was full-time I never saw anything "Guaranteed". Layoffs and downsizing - I saw plenty of that. In the last 5 years quite a bit actually.
If you want to contract and have "security" do what I do. Get more than one client. Most service businesses do that kinda stuff. Most that failed - only had one client, or had a single client that represented far too much income risk.
But hey - contractors are meaningless! The money? Meh! It's only money. You have a "real-job"! Keep telling yourself that when the next reorg happens. Like Oracle. They have about 2000 fewer "real-jobs" than a month ago. I can only hope the layoffees don't go into contracting but persist in scrambling for more "real-jobs". It means more money for me.
I'll tell my neighbors from Pixar to move the hell out then. Damn cheapskate freeloaders. Disney threw a wad of cash at them - HA - they're still poorer than dirt farmers the lot of em. 7 billion - HA! HA I say! Oh sure they have some computer people - but that drawing thing - meh! and FEH!
Increadibles, Nemo - just a fad. A FAD!
re:"I've been living in San Francisco for going on two years now and have yet to meet anyone who is working in a "Web" or "e-commerce" job up here"
h p
Don't know what part of SF you're in - but in SOMA and Mission Bay you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a dot-commer or overhearing a dot-com conversation.
Where are you - the Tenderloin? Seriously I think the new economy is ditching you. Cheese it - it's Yeechang! Everyone stop doing dot-com work!
Check out Valleywag for a small indicator of SF tech businesses - and I can vouch that my contracting with start-ups indicates that this map is very much out of date:
http://www.valleywag.com/tech/google-maps/index.p