Hah! yeah david braben jaw is impressive.

Best jaw in film ever: Robert Z'Dar



Interestingly, him and Cambel were in Maniac Cop together ^_^

same -

sounds like an awful day, sorry to hear that. I've had a couple very similar experiences, even down to being driven many miles out of town to sell door to door (nobody abandoned me, though…man, that SUCKS!).

And it IS a shifty scam, to get around minimum wage protections. Bastards! And what is one to do, when desperate for work?

True story:
When I was on the dole here many years ago (unemployment money), after a few months one of the conditions of getting the dole was you had to join up with these “job finding” agencies.

These “Agencies” were this shitty thing the conservative government here set up to get people out of the unemployment statistics. They were strictly forbidden from sending people out to cleaning jobs, work for commission jobs, or call centre jobs… but when I signed up with one of them that is ALL these bastards did. They were supposed to actively find you jobs that best suited your experience, education, work history etc, but they never ever did that, they just sent you off for shit and if you didn't go or if you refused employment that was offered to you your payments would cease.
Meanwhile these C***TS were collecting money from the government that would have been better off going to the actual jobless people and they'd get a big fat bonus if they “found” you a job, i.e. forced you into a minimum wage hell-job.

Anyway, when I was sent off to interview for a cleaning job I just played dumb and they never offered me the position. Dodged that bullet.
When I was sent off for a call centre job the lady interviewing me looked really carefully over my CV and stopped offering me the call centre stuff and instead started talking to me about graphic deign instead…
I talked myself up big and she hired me on the spot as their graphic designer!

That has absolutely fricken ZERO to do with that f****n agency. All the agency had heard about was the call centre crap and those sorts of jobs were the only ones anyone would approach places like that to try and fill. But that damn place STILL got the government hiring bonus…
I was just lucky to have escaped their clutches.

REALLY lucky, and cocky too, since I told the woman who hired me that they'd have to wait two weeks for me to start since I was going on holiday to see my sister in Sydney in a few days. She not only agreed she gave me an advance of $450 to spend on my holiday.
Great way to start my first full time graphic art position!

same wrote:
So I had to quit the job I had because it was commission only and cold calling. Worst job I've ever had. I took 3 weeks working 40 hours and didn't make a single sale.

Are you sure that's legal in your area? Where I live you MUST make at least minimum wage. So you can work a commission-only job, but if you're not making the equivalent of minimum wage your employer has to pay the difference.

Is it just me or is Facebook too full of people “sharing” pics with puppies on them and pics with writing on them about inspirational crap or covered in lame jokes?

Whoot, it's the beggining of the end (of the world and this thread). So hwo are you guys going to spend the end?

I'm going over to my family after my finals around 20th. yay! Just in time b4 christmas. Oh and yesterday I was purrty mad at the radio for playing xmass songs, because it wasn't december. So technically I could be okay with them playing songs today, but it's still too early!

@Banes: Yep. It was a shitty day. If they'd have done that the first day
I would have declined the job the second I got back to the office. I
was even told I could earn 400 pound a week. I kept asking how much I
will earn though and they kept dodging the question and eventually told
me it was commission only. Cunts.
@Oz: Yeah we have the Dole here too “I didn't realize it was called that elsewhere”. Similarly if we're unemployed for 6 months we're pushed into similar jobs only we get an extra 15 pound a week on top of the money we're currently getting for unemployment benefits. I just drank it away because the jobs were so shitty. I worked admin for a while. I enjoyed it for 6 weeks then I realized that I wasn't earning anything and I wasn't going to get the position. I left for a retail job and found out they'd been more or less treating one of the guys as a stock goblin. He was literally kept down in the store room for 6 hours a day monday to sunday just to do the heavy lifting. He was there unpaid for 26 weeks and he didn't even get a job at the end of it. I quit within one week because they didn't even train me. I'll have to watch Maniac cop then. Also yes facebook is becoming like Tumblr.
@Hippie Van: Unfortunately it is. I don't know why but it's legal here. I can get assistance with income but there's a very big issue. Most want you to work more than part time hours. I was working every day and even though I was supposed to be working full time hours I was actually out from 8am - 6pm monday to friday. 50 hours I was out not including lunch. I don't know why it was legal but they wouldn't accept working any less hours so I just quit.

same wrote:
@Hippie Van: Unfortunately it is. I don't know why but it's legal here. I can get assistance with income but there's a very big issue. Most want you to work more than part time hours. I was working every day and even though I was supposed to be working full time hours I was actually out from 8am - 6pm monday to friday. 50 hours I was out not including lunch. I don't know why it was legal but they wouldn't accept working any less hours so I just quit.

I've been looking into UK labour laws and can't find any exception from minimum wage for commission-based jobs. You're also not supposed to be forced to work more than 48 hours a week.
I don't mean to come across as insulting if you've already looked into this, but I talk to people all the time who don't know what their rights are as employees. It seems that unless you're working for the government, your employer will skirt the law at some point(sometimes unintentionally, as with a former boss of mine who had no idea about overtime laws).

So, that advert is on TV again. The one where hundreds of people come out in their winter woollies to watch a Coke van drive past. It doesn't even stop to sell them any Coke. Probably just delivering a pallet full to the local LIDL. I can't see why they find it all so bloody fascinating. It is covered with bulbs, but even so…

Because ‘tis the season to be jolly Skreem! I’ve just popped my christmas cake in the oven and after tasting the dangerously alcoholic mixture, I too am feeling the christmas spirit.

And three cheers for Hippie QC, fighting for the rights of the down trodden masses in her colourful van. (I think they usually get around the law by calling you ‘self employed’ so you have to invoice them for your cash and you also have none of the benefits of paid holidays and so forth. Makes a mockery of the whole minimum wage theory. I'm right behind you Hippie - up the workers, Vive La Revolution!

Hillarious Xmas rendition!
My top 3 Xmas songs right now:
- Don't Let The Bells End - The Darkness.
(a dick joke I did not get at the time due to not knowing what a “bell end” was)
- Stop The Cavalry - Jona Lewie
- Troika (from Lieutenant Kij) - Prokoviev

The Quackcast with Call Me Tom is finallllllly up I seeee!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!! Listen to his fantastic accent!

Had nasty migraines since Monday night. Had to go home from work today after an hour. Was horrible. :(

Ironscarf wrote: And three cheers for Hippie QC, fighting for the rights of the down trodden masses in her colourful van. (I think they usually get around the law by calling you ‘self employed’ so you have to invoice them for your cash and you also have none of the benefits of paid holidays and so forth. Makes a mockery of the whole minimum wage theory. I'm right behind you Hippie - up the workers, Vive La Revolution!

Very interesting! Unethical people can be so clever.
Edit: Just realized that I don't know what QC stands for. Over here it's the abbreviation for Quebec, eh.

—

I haven't been on here in so long. In case anyone is interested, I've been in university. Contrary to what everyone told me, I did in fact go back to school after taking some time off to work and to decide what I wanted to do. Did anyone else do this? Where I live, people get downright judgemental if you don't go straight to post-secondary from high school.
I've been really enjoying it. I happened to stumble upon the History Students Assocation and suddenly found myself with a group of people who are all really compatible with me. It also gives me a chance to schmooze with a lot of my current and future professors. : )

Unfortunately, I am enjoying school a lot less than usual this week because I'm going into my third straight day of exams tomorrow. The exam period is most of december, but somehow mine are all bunched together right at the beginning. I haven't been able to sleep much the last couple of days and that, along with the stress and all the writing, is definitely starting to take its toll mentally and physically. It's a bit of an adrenaline-fuelled roller coaster ride right now.

Having time off before study at uni is pretty common in most places, makes for more mature and intelligent students. Going straight out of high-school… those guys are a bit inexperienced. No offence intended to those who went that way.

After a wonderful dinner with family I had what i thought was heartburn that turned into intense chest-in-a-vise agony and I went to the wife and just said “Call 911”

I got a trip to the ER and was checked out and fortunately only have to follow up with a Gastro-interologist and not a cardiologist. Still it was quite a scare and amazing how closely an intense attack of indigestion can mimic a heart attack. Let's hope it ends there with some Pepsid Complete and nothing else. And don't eat so much Bravo. Definitely don't eat so much.

Glad you're all right after all Bravo! And happy birthday again :)

I've started on the next page of WM but it's dragging from panel to panel. I just hate drawing this horror sometimes. :( Has it ever happened to you, to be loathe to draw something in your comics because it's just too hurtful?

Eeek. Glad you're okay Bravo. (But having to watch how much you eat, and with the xmas over-eating season almost upon us. Man.)

Poor Bravo! Painful, scary, and a little embarrassing at the same time. But that's ok since it's great news that's all it was- farrr better than the alternative!

Tantz Aerine wrote:
I just hate drawing this horror sometimes. :( Has it ever happened to you, to be loathe to draw something in your comics because it's just too hurtful?

In a way - drawing Pinky's legs being gouged by shrapnel was hard… I hate the look of wounds, but I like to be accurate with the way I draw so I made the image real enough to physically sicken myself. …aaaand then had to dial it back because I don't want that sort of thing in my comic basically. Not ever.
All you need is to get a sense of the emotional impact, you don't need to see the ragged edges of the torn muscle, exposed bone, heat blistered, shredded skin… My style is too uncomfortably vivid for me to do that.

I know you're talking about something slightly different but the principal's the same.

ozoneocean wrote:
Having time off before study at uni is pretty common in most places, makes for more mature and intelligent students. Going straight out of high-school… those guys are a bit inexperienced. No offence intended to those who went that way.

My brother's doing politics at uni. He's in about 1 day a week and that's only about 5 hours. Most of it's “studying” at home.

same wrote:
ozoneocean wrote:
Having time off before study at uni is pretty common in most places, makes for more mature and intelligent students. Going straight out of high-school… those guys are a bit inexperienced. No offence intended to those who went that way.
My brother's doing politics at uni. He's in about 1 day a week and that's only about 5 hours. Most of it's “studying” at home.

I was forced to go into college right away by my mother for various reasons. I wish I'd taken the time off to do anything as my college days were close to being a total waste of study time because I had no idea what I was doing.

bravo1102 wrote:
I was forced to go into college right away by my mother for various reasons. I wish I'd taken the time off to do anything as my college days were close to being a total waste of study time because I had no idea what I was doing.

I went to technical college and in order:
Failed game development
Quit media after 1 year
Passed art and finally
Got directed by the tutor to the wrong campus and never even enrolled for graphic design since he was a dick and told me it was at a campus that was miles away.

Ozone: Yes, the principle is the same :(

On a better note, starting next week I and my mother will have a weekly radio broadcast of sociopolitical content :) I'm fairly happy about that!

Congrats Tantz! That'll be amazing! You two sound like an intellectual powerhouse. Intimidating :)

——-

I went to art collage straight out of highschool. And I was pretty flaky…
Have you ever seen “Art School Confidential”? Well it was like that. Exactly, in every way. There was even a serial killer on the loose. I'm not joking.

After a year of that and being so-so I went an a couple of short sail training voyages… Got deathly ill with chicken pox on the last one and spent a couple of months in bed the sickest I had ever been in my entire life up to that point. I wanted to die at times.Then back to art school when I finally recovered enough, but still didn't lose my death cough for another few months.

After doing more artschool for a few years I went to university and did more art… but more fine art and less design.

Then into the world of the jobless after graduation. Getting some freelance graphic design work, a product design job… bumming around, doing fantasy art and sticking it on the web… getting lots of fans….

Then I did some post grad stuff in Interactive multimedia - animation, web design, project management, educational theory…

Then more jobless stuff, another graphic design job for a while, then teaching digital animation, then healthcare admin, then another graphic design job…

I've been very lucky with my work in that most of it has come to me without me trying very hard for it or at all. But I've been lazy too.

At least you've been getting work. Then again I hear Aussieland is actually full of work at the minute. My brother's planning to move there. I couldn't due to the spiders. Even knowing I'm on the same land mass as something that big would cause me not to be able to sleep.
I started a site for my own comic. Started using google adsense. I can't see how people make money off it. Is it mainly just from people accidentally clicking on it? I really don't see it's use.

The spiders thing is just a case of us compensating because Aussies were for a long while very self concious about our little place in the world. :)
…with snakes though, there ARE a whole bucketload of venomous species, more than you'd get elsewhere, but almost all of them live in places you'd never go anyway. And you have St Patrick to protect you, never forget! ^_^

The USA probably has most of the same spiders Australia does.
It's funny, When I went to Sydney many years ago, it's this big urban/suburban place, a intensively populated fully European city, and yet in Tarronga Zoo and the Manly Aquarium they have their special little spider and snake exhibits just there for the tourists. It's sort of sad.

Anyway, JOBS! Yep, What you want here is a job in the mining industry, For very little experience or training you could be easily earning 150K a year easily.
Study geology or engineering and it'll be 200K.
The mining industry has been the source of instant wealth for a new class of moron here. It's quite a phenomenon.
We need more smart immigrants. :D

I've only just really looked at what I uploaded as page one of my comic… what the fuck was in that cigarette I had just before I created that filter filled monstrosity!?

I'm guessing the cigarette itself was free of filters?

Just realized that I don't know what QC stands for. Over here it's the abbreviation for Quebec, eh.

QC stands for Queens Counsel, an officially selected senior lawyer here in the UK. Hippie from Quebec is probably more use in a crisis though.

Ironscarf wrote:
I'm guessing the cigarette itself was free of filters?

More than likely.

HOT DAMN IM GONNA BE AN AUNTY AGAIN TODAY!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htobTBlCvUU

Oh So Quiet… Bjork. :)

This week's Quackcast was on Secret Santa sign ups.
SING UP!!!! Last day is tomorrow you freaks!!!!!!!!
http://www.drunkduck.com/forum/topic/175400/