I hate money
So I've spent every waking moment of the past 24 hours trying to get TAS back up and running, right?
Well, all except for the hour I just spent balancing my checkbook.
Which brings me back around to TAS again, and the realization that I'm wasting my time.
I'm going to do all this work, and get it back up and running, bigger and better than ever before... and for what?
So that on April 22, GoDaddy can ask me for money I don't have to pay the bandwidth charges that I have to pay so that everyone except me can download these stupid damned videos, 99% of them without so much as a word of thanks and 95% of them without donating so much as a penny to help me keep the stupid damn site going.
Oh, but you can be damned sure that come April 23, when the site is completely gone because I don't have to money to keep paying for it by myself, they'll sure as hell email me to bitch that they can't get what they want right the hell now!
And I swear to GOD if I see one more stupid, idiotic, ass-ugly MySpace journal hotlinking to my wallpapers and using them for backgrounds and icons and whatever the hell else they feel like stealing them for, I'm gonna lose it! (note to self: you've already lost it, bri...) Do you know what that's called, you MySpace morons? It's called bandwidth theft. Yes, that's right - bandwidth theft. You can't make a decent page background or avatar to save your puny little pathetic life, so you decide to help yourself to mine, and who do you think has to pay for that? Pay attention here... I do! I pay GoDaddy so that you can use my pictures to decorate your stupid, ugly, sorry excuse for a blog, without even asking me! Fucking thieves!
Another "sure thing" design job bites the dust.
No, it didn't bite the dust. He disappeared. Vanished. Into thin air. Taking with him a couple of designs that he'd promised to pay $800 each for, after having paid me a grand total of... drum roll please... $200. In December. The last time I talked to him was on February 13, when he told me all about this wonderful tech fair he'd been too, and how many callbacks he had to make, and how the future looked so great, and he'd send me some cash in the "next day or so." Yeah, right, King. "You can trust me," he says. "I won't do that to you." "I'm for real." "I'll show you how real I am... here, I'll send you $200 before you send me anything... see? You can trust me," he says.
And me, being the stupid, idiotic, gullible, stupid, easily-deceived, stupid, trusting moron that I am... fell for it. Again!
Again, you ask? Oh yes, I say. Again.
Let's see...
First there was my buddy, Mike. He and I (and another guy named Mike) were going to make a whole bunch of money doing design. Yeah, that never happened... but hey, Mike didn't make any money either, and he never stole anything from me, and we're still friends to this day, but it still stung.
Then, there was Dan. Aw, sweet, lovable, Dan... my dear, trusted friend. "You're going to make so much money doing this, bri, it's not even funny. You're the best designer I've ever worked with. I can't wait to get started, but see... I'm a little strapped for cash right now, so why don't you just go ahead and make up these four sites for me, and I'll pay you for them as soon as I get the money. Yeah, yeah, $200 each, just like we said... yeah, $800 for the first four sites, and I'll pay you in just a few days... Oh, and I've got this buddy... why don't you make him a couple while you're at it? He'll pay you $500 each, so why don't you go ahead and make him two or three now, and he'll pay you in just a few days..."
Six weeks later:
"Hey, bri, meet Mr. Pornguy (I can't remember the dirty old fart's name). He needs someone to do some classy, tasteful layouts for some cam sites he runs. He's pulling down $80,000/month from these, and he's prepared to pay you $5000 a month ($1000 base fee + approx. $4000 in profit percentage) if you'll maintain the sites for him on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, yeah, just give him two or three sites to start with, to show him what you can do. You'll be contracted for no less than 6 months on this one. This is gonna be great... hey, bri, trust me! Your old buddy Dan... have I ever lied to you?"
One month later:
Mr. Pornguy vanishes, taking with him my "guaranteed" $30,000 6-month contract, three complete designs for webcam sites, and several hundred thousand dollars in modeling fees... seems he hadn't been paying the girls, either...
Two weeks after that, Dan disappears from existence. Email starts bouncing, all of his domains go down, his Yahoo ID is no longer valid, and his phone number is disconnected. His "buddy" goes MIA too.
Total loss from my "friendship" with dear old Dan? Ten complete designs, in full quality, already coded... and almost $33,000.
Next is Steve. I loved this guy. Actually, I still love this guy... or would, anyway, if I had any idea how on Earth to get a hold of him. This was another case of "we're gonna be so great together!" that went absolutely nowhere. We were going to package and market (I was going to package; he was going to market) pre-made sites for real estate agents... six designs in total, one for each of the major real estate brokers in the US... yeah, those two weeks were a complete and total waste of time. I could have sold the designs, certainly... at the time, I was selling custom PostNuke themes for $150 each... but who would want a theme that looked like a Century 21 office?
Then came Brian. Ah, Brian... now, I'm perfectly willing to admit that falling in with Dan was quite possibly the stupidest (not to mention most costly) thing I have ever in my life done - after all, I'd known Dan for maybe two months when I started "working" for him (for free). But Brian... I'd know Brian for well over a year. I'd watched him start his business, a combination hosting/CMS/e-commerce company, in his friggin' dorm room. He started out with a few reseller accounts, moved up to leased, and then up to co-loc. This was when he approached me, asking me if I'd be his designer. Of course, I said yes, because he was my friend I am an idiot. We did a few small things together, here and there, and he always paid me... and then came the site.
The site that in March, April and May of 2003 dominated my life from the time I woke up in the morning until the time I went to bed at night... which I didn't do very often. The client had given us an insane deadline and an insane amount of work to do, and every morning I'd log on just to find out that more had been added. I was originally contracted for $750. After two rounds of further negotiations, that number was upped to $900. In May, my part of the project (and a whole bunch of stuff I'd had to do knowing I'd never be paid for it, just because no one else was going to do it) came to a close when I signed off on a completely implimented OSCommerce theme (back when there was no such thing as an OSCommerce theme, and changing the design required combing through hundreds of files by hand).
In July, Brian quit.
Brian didn't get paid the full amount he'd contracted for. Why? Because he quit! He didn't finish the job they'd hired him to do, so they docked him pay.
I, on the other hand, had finished everything I'd been contracted to do, plus a dozen other things that I hadn't...
So of course, Brian, being my good and true and dear friend, explained to me what had happened, expressed his condolences for ever having gotten us involved in what turned out to be a nightmare job... and promptly shorted me $400. Not only did I not receive the full $900 promised me after the negotiations, I didn't even get the $750 I'd been promised at the very beginning.
And now, coming up on 3 years later, Brian's business is thriving - booming even. He's moved on from co-loc to actually running his own data center, giving every indication that he is a successful young man with an impressive work ethic and dedication to his customers... and he still owes me, his "friend," $400.
And let's not forget Billy. Billy flitted in and out of my life for almost a year, always talking about this great business he was going to build, and how if I'd just do what I do best, and maybe babysit the live support chat every day, he'd take me along with him every step of the way. Yeah... every step of the way, Billy, right into oblivion, apparently, since I haven't seen you in over a year. I don't remember if you owe me any money or not... any records I had bit the dust when I got my new computer last February, and wiped the HDD on the old one...
I even have the distinct privilege of having been jerked around by celebrities. A little under a year ago, I was approached to redesign the Official Jon BonJovi fanclub site (which was, and still is, the most completely butt-ugly site that it has ever been my distinct displeasure to lay eyes on... ). Promised fee - $800. Received - $0. Reason - the project manager apparently went insane. :\
And we're back to King again...
So, let's run a total, shall we?
Total amount of money I've earned - $34,900
Total amount of money I've been paid - $950
Wow... I haven't let myself think about most of this stuff in a very long time - mainly because it's only proof of how stupid and gullible I am. And after all these years, and after all this shit... I still fall for it. I fell for King's bullshit just 4 months ago, after all, and I kept buying it and kept buying it until February...
*sigh*
I take it back. I don't hate money. I hate people. And I hate that I'm stupid enough to trust them.
~ bri ~
Well, all except for the hour I just spent balancing my checkbook.
Which brings me back around to TAS again, and the realization that I'm wasting my time.
I'm going to do all this work, and get it back up and running, bigger and better than ever before... and for what?
So that on April 22, GoDaddy can ask me for money I don't have to pay the bandwidth charges that I have to pay so that everyone except me can download these stupid damned videos, 99% of them without so much as a word of thanks and 95% of them without donating so much as a penny to help me keep the stupid damn site going.
Oh, but you can be damned sure that come April 23, when the site is completely gone because I don't have to money to keep paying for it by myself, they'll sure as hell email me to bitch that they can't get what they want right the hell now!
And I swear to GOD if I see one more stupid, idiotic, ass-ugly MySpace journal hotlinking to my wallpapers and using them for backgrounds and icons and whatever the hell else they feel like stealing them for, I'm gonna lose it! (note to self: you've already lost it, bri...) Do you know what that's called, you MySpace morons? It's called bandwidth theft. Yes, that's right - bandwidth theft. You can't make a decent page background or avatar to save your puny little pathetic life, so you decide to help yourself to mine, and who do you think has to pay for that? Pay attention here... I do! I pay GoDaddy so that you can use my pictures to decorate your stupid, ugly, sorry excuse for a blog, without even asking me! Fucking thieves!
Another "sure thing" design job bites the dust.
No, it didn't bite the dust. He disappeared. Vanished. Into thin air. Taking with him a couple of designs that he'd promised to pay $800 each for, after having paid me a grand total of... drum roll please... $200. In December. The last time I talked to him was on February 13, when he told me all about this wonderful tech fair he'd been too, and how many callbacks he had to make, and how the future looked so great, and he'd send me some cash in the "next day or so." Yeah, right, King. "You can trust me," he says. "I won't do that to you." "I'm for real." "I'll show you how real I am... here, I'll send you $200 before you send me anything... see? You can trust me," he says.
And me, being the stupid, idiotic, gullible, stupid, easily-deceived, stupid, trusting moron that I am... fell for it. Again!
Again, you ask? Oh yes, I say. Again.
Let's see...
First there was my buddy, Mike. He and I (and another guy named Mike) were going to make a whole bunch of money doing design. Yeah, that never happened... but hey, Mike didn't make any money either, and he never stole anything from me, and we're still friends to this day, but it still stung.
Then, there was Dan. Aw, sweet, lovable, Dan... my dear, trusted friend. "You're going to make so much money doing this, bri, it's not even funny. You're the best designer I've ever worked with. I can't wait to get started, but see... I'm a little strapped for cash right now, so why don't you just go ahead and make up these four sites for me, and I'll pay you for them as soon as I get the money. Yeah, yeah, $200 each, just like we said... yeah, $800 for the first four sites, and I'll pay you in just a few days... Oh, and I've got this buddy... why don't you make him a couple while you're at it? He'll pay you $500 each, so why don't you go ahead and make him two or three now, and he'll pay you in just a few days..."
Six weeks later:
"Hey, bri, meet Mr. Pornguy (I can't remember the dirty old fart's name). He needs someone to do some classy, tasteful layouts for some cam sites he runs. He's pulling down $80,000/month from these, and he's prepared to pay you $5000 a month ($1000 base fee + approx. $4000 in profit percentage) if you'll maintain the sites for him on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, yeah, just give him two or three sites to start with, to show him what you can do. You'll be contracted for no less than 6 months on this one. This is gonna be great... hey, bri, trust me! Your old buddy Dan... have I ever lied to you?"
One month later:
Mr. Pornguy vanishes, taking with him my "guaranteed" $30,000 6-month contract, three complete designs for webcam sites, and several hundred thousand dollars in modeling fees... seems he hadn't been paying the girls, either...
Two weeks after that, Dan disappears from existence. Email starts bouncing, all of his domains go down, his Yahoo ID is no longer valid, and his phone number is disconnected. His "buddy" goes MIA too.
Total loss from my "friendship" with dear old Dan? Ten complete designs, in full quality, already coded... and almost $33,000.
Next is Steve. I loved this guy. Actually, I still love this guy... or would, anyway, if I had any idea how on Earth to get a hold of him. This was another case of "we're gonna be so great together!" that went absolutely nowhere. We were going to package and market (I was going to package; he was going to market) pre-made sites for real estate agents... six designs in total, one for each of the major real estate brokers in the US... yeah, those two weeks were a complete and total waste of time. I could have sold the designs, certainly... at the time, I was selling custom PostNuke themes for $150 each... but who would want a theme that looked like a Century 21 office?
Then came Brian. Ah, Brian... now, I'm perfectly willing to admit that falling in with Dan was quite possibly the stupidest (not to mention most costly) thing I have ever in my life done - after all, I'd known Dan for maybe two months when I started "working" for him (for free). But Brian... I'd know Brian for well over a year. I'd watched him start his business, a combination hosting/CMS/e-commerce company, in his friggin' dorm room. He started out with a few reseller accounts, moved up to leased, and then up to co-loc. This was when he approached me, asking me if I'd be his designer. Of course, I said yes, because he was my friend I am an idiot. We did a few small things together, here and there, and he always paid me... and then came the site.
The site that in March, April and May of 2003 dominated my life from the time I woke up in the morning until the time I went to bed at night... which I didn't do very often. The client had given us an insane deadline and an insane amount of work to do, and every morning I'd log on just to find out that more had been added. I was originally contracted for $750. After two rounds of further negotiations, that number was upped to $900. In May, my part of the project (and a whole bunch of stuff I'd had to do knowing I'd never be paid for it, just because no one else was going to do it) came to a close when I signed off on a completely implimented OSCommerce theme (back when there was no such thing as an OSCommerce theme, and changing the design required combing through hundreds of files by hand).
In July, Brian quit.
Brian didn't get paid the full amount he'd contracted for. Why? Because he quit! He didn't finish the job they'd hired him to do, so they docked him pay.
I, on the other hand, had finished everything I'd been contracted to do, plus a dozen other things that I hadn't...
So of course, Brian, being my good and true and dear friend, explained to me what had happened, expressed his condolences for ever having gotten us involved in what turned out to be a nightmare job... and promptly shorted me $400. Not only did I not receive the full $900 promised me after the negotiations, I didn't even get the $750 I'd been promised at the very beginning.
And now, coming up on 3 years later, Brian's business is thriving - booming even. He's moved on from co-loc to actually running his own data center, giving every indication that he is a successful young man with an impressive work ethic and dedication to his customers... and he still owes me, his "friend," $400.
And let's not forget Billy. Billy flitted in and out of my life for almost a year, always talking about this great business he was going to build, and how if I'd just do what I do best, and maybe babysit the live support chat every day, he'd take me along with him every step of the way. Yeah... every step of the way, Billy, right into oblivion, apparently, since I haven't seen you in over a year. I don't remember if you owe me any money or not... any records I had bit the dust when I got my new computer last February, and wiped the HDD on the old one...
I even have the distinct privilege of having been jerked around by celebrities. A little under a year ago, I was approached to redesign the Official Jon BonJovi fanclub site (which was, and still is, the most completely butt-ugly site that it has ever been my distinct displeasure to lay eyes on... ). Promised fee - $800. Received - $0. Reason - the project manager apparently went insane. :\
And we're back to King again...
So, let's run a total, shall we?
Total amount of money I've earned - $34,900
Total amount of money I've been paid - $950
Wow... I haven't let myself think about most of this stuff in a very long time - mainly because it's only proof of how stupid and gullible I am. And after all these years, and after all this shit... I still fall for it. I fell for King's bullshit just 4 months ago, after all, and I kept buying it and kept buying it until February...
*sigh*
I take it back. I don't hate money. I hate people. And I hate that I'm stupid enough to trust them.
~ bri ~