The Biznut

Dude, I searched forever to find lyrics to that track. If anyone would have them somewhere, it would be you; you should hook me up so I can be cool and rap along with the other 70%. The phrases I've figured out on my own are fantastic, I'd love to know the rest.

So I was in a parade a few hours ago! My DJ company (me) got a float together for a town fair in the area. The float consisted of a 30 foot flatbed trailer equipped with some 10 foot corral panels as railings, a small table, my laptop, a mixer, a mic, and some speakers. Basically, a dance party on a trailer. It barely came together on time, and I didn't have anyone to dance on it until the 5 minutes before the parade started. I was very happy to see it fill up before we started passing the crowds. The only thing that didn't come together was my business sign. It somehow didn't make it to the parade, so apart from the kids who collected the Reese peanut butter cups with business cards taped to them that were thrown from the float, nobody knew who we were or what we were advertising! They'll have to wait till next year to find out, haha. Good thing I have steady work throughout the summer. Anyway, it was a massively stressful event to make it happen, but it was worth it for sure,even with the missed publicity! Lots of people in the town know me so maybe word will get out that it was us. Heck it was worth it just to see my bet friends kid dance up a storm! I'll post some pics once I get my hands on them.

dude I still listen to the "Final Battle" track from the original MegaRan album like every time I go running, it totally gets me fired up. You can believe I'll be all over this one, thanks for the post man.

Hey Bahamut, I know I'm late but you still get a happy birthday from me man. You rock, have a great day today!

Score, I've been waiting for this! Im so in

I'll have to check out Google Analytics and Google Web Master tools and see what they are all about. I still feel a bit like a foreigner to this, although your posts have been supremely informative, Rama. I didn't even know what this was about and where to start learning; you are really pointing me in some good directions here. You rock mang! That's a good question. I really don't know how to answer but to tell the story, if you'll indulge me... The summer before I started the business, I worked a full season as heavy equipment operator driving buggy. I took the job for the money, It paid well and there were long hours; and I had student loans to pay off. I worked 6 days a week for 12 hours a day for 8 months. It was a great opportunity, but not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life at all. The more 12 hour days I worked, the more appealing going back to school and finishing my Ed degree was looking. In september I was browsing some local classified ads and I saw an ad about a local Mobile DJ company for sale. I was curious about it and so I went and met with the guy. We talked and talked and he showed me all his gear and lights and I played with them a bit. I ended up going back with my younger brother to talk it over with him again, and lil bro said that he could totally see me doing that and loving it. That stuck with me. I almost bought the business from that guy, but I didn't. (Thank heavens, he was asking WAY too much as I found out later) I drove buggy until the ground froze in mid November, and the DJ thing was in the back of my mind the whole time. When the season was done, all my debts were gone and I had saved up a few thousand bucks, so I started looking through the classifieds for more DJ stuff, and I found another mobile DJ business that was available for nearly one tenth the price of the first business I had looked at. I purchased it, chose a name and registered the business that December 2008, and the first wedding I did was on May 4th of 2009 and business has been steady enough to keep me happy ever since. So I guess to sum it up, I sort of stumbled across the idea at just the right time; I was motivated by my 70+ hour work weeks to find a more enjoyable and flexible way of creating income and I had enough money to make an initial investment. I never did any research into if there was a need for another mobile DJ service in my area, I just sort of jumped into it, and the opportunities kept coming up. I didn't always make the best decisions off the bat, but I have sure learned a lot and have found it to be a pretty great match for my abilities and personality. It's been a fantastic investment so far and, as I found out when I returned to school, It's probably the best job a student could ask for!

That's awesome Zircon. I'll post more when I get to that point for sure, any help or advice is totally welcomed and appreciated. Very helpful post Rama, thanks for sharing. I won't tell your boss Currently, if you google "Grande Prairie DJ" (the city I operate in, around) Absolute Entertainment is the 3rd listing, the first two are from an event directory service, so the website is the first actual DJ service website. I've gotten a good deal of business through there, which is good. I'm gonna register it with google maps soon so it comes up there too. With gpdj.ca, (my website) I got a call from Orange Soda out of the blue, they do web optimization stuff, and I signed up for a low end package. I ended up canceling my service with them after 3 months, but during that time I moved to the up of Grande Prairie DJ web searches, and I have stayed there for over a year now without any optimization service. What is the best way to get a site optimized? Ramaniscence, you know your stuff, but I don't know how much you can say, lol. Is going through an optimization service the best way to get your website up there? Are there even any other options? Also next week I'm gonna spend some time on google finding out what sort of web presence other wedding dj/photographers have, as well as wedding service directories. A really slick and functional wedding service hub could be a great opportunity, especially if I also own some of those services. I have no idea whats out there for that though. That is the situation I look forward to in sept of 2011. Being able to suppliment a teachers low starting salary with business on the side that is pretty enjoyable is a blessing for sure; and so is marriage! Congrats there man, that's good news!

Happy B Cyril the W

I was aware of you're involvement in Impact Soundworks and Zirconmusic (obviously ) but i didn't know about SpaceWhaleStudios. Great name, lol. wait. Nevermind, I did know about SpaceWhaleStudios, i forgot I knew, lol... Having businesses intertwined / overlap is pretty great. Since weddings are by far the most profitable sort of work I get, I am exploring the possibilities of expanding my company to include wedding Photography and Videography. Being able to offer more in one place will be a big draw, and If I can present the photography well enough, it will definitely pull more DJ business because people usually look for a Photographer before a DJ. I've been in contact with a local up and coming wedding photographer who is super stoked to possibly work with me. I just grabbed a web domain for her today actually. I have been mulling over the best way to set up this side of the business a LOT. I think Ideally, I would like to have one website that is at the top of Google for wedding photography, wedding dj, wedding services searches, bring as much traffic through that site first... Navigating the web side of business has been fun, haha, I have felt differing degrees of lost most of the time, haha. I think I'm slowly getting better at it; it is a REALLY important part of business for sure. I'm going to assume web stuff is no issue for you Zircon, would that be correct?

I've been spending more and more time on this site in the last few months and thought I might as well see what sort of beneficial information comes out of a business thread. Basically, if you are into business, especially if you own your own business, feel free to join the discussion. I would be interested in hearing what sort of business you run/are involved in, what your goals/challenges are with it, etc. Business questions or advice is welcome! Here's my deal. In addition to finishing up my education degree, I also run a small business which I started in Dec 2008, a mobile DJ company that takes on school dances and weddings mainly. It has been profitable enough that I have pretty much paid off all of my equipment, etc. The summer ahead will be a good one or the business, with a wedding happening most every weekend right through till mid September. Some of the weekends I've double booked; I have brought in someone who is keen to DJ and is really good with music, but doesn't have much experience. The goal is to have him comfortable enough with my equipment set up and a mic in his hand to solo a full wedding by next month. Looking ahead to the future, in Sept. I'll be back in school for my 4th and final year of my Ed Degree, after which I'll almost certainly find work teaching locally. I'm obligated to teach in this area for 3 years in leu of a bursary contract, for school. I'll be able to DJ personally through my 4th year, and somewhat into next summer, but by this time next year I hope to have others doing the DJing more or less. I'd run the business, advertise, book clients, and have things set up in such a way that I can survive first year of teaching while keeping a business up and running. In other words, streamline/simplify it as much as possible. If anyone else here has made the transition from "doing it" to "having others do it for you", I'd like to hear what that was like for you. I'm a bit of a hands on guy, and I can already see it's going to be a challenge stepping back and letting others do the frontline work, at least at first. I'm sure it will be quite nice once I get used to it

haha, I just LOVE those old 90's eurodance music videos! So...old! Retrostyle! I have listened to the remix I want to cover about a hundred times in the last 2 weeks, each time visualizing what my music video would look like, mentally storyboarding it each time. I'm going to commit to this, I'm positive I can make it happen. It's been a real challenge to vision it through so it will feel pretty good to accomplish something with it! It will involve a road trip most likely, so it will at least be fun!

Absolutely. Zero, again, absolutely. Dr. Light is a strongly agree too. Very Yes. VERY Yes. VERY Yes!!! Though Ramza really should be the first choice here. Apart from these hearty agreements I'll propose Sigma from the MMX series, Luna from the Lunar Series, and Flik from Suikoden 1 and 2.

POST YOUR SCORES!! First attempt - 46050

Now lets go make some music videos!

ATB Darude Paul Oakenfold Trance Control Juno Reactor Infected Mushroom Cosmic Gate Armin van Buuren Thats all I can think of off the top of my head... There are so many individual trance songs that I totally love but don't know of any other songs by the artist, so I don't feel I should put them down on the list. If your "means of acquisition" offers compilations, you can usually score decently there too, getting all the one hit wonders as well as some awesome selections from solid album after album artists. It should go without saying to make sure you have the good stuff from here too, Rayza, Disco Dan, Symphonic Chronicles, Jewbei, Matt Drouin, bLiNd, Strike911, Beatdrop, Siamey, Biznut (someday) and so on. Also, go find Stike911's sig somewhere and click the link, and go steal all his free music, there's some gold in there for sure.

Lets not forget their role in the Mechwarrior series; Mechwarrior 2 Mercenacaries was SO cool when I was 9.

It should be no secret to anyone by this point that Google is out to own the internet. If it weren't for Facebook, who knows, they might have pretty much had it by now. Both companies are very, very, serious about controlling what the internet looks and functions like; really, to define what the internet is, the whole experience; hence the aggressive expansionism of both companies into all sorts of places. Chrome OS is just one example on Google's part. They'll quickly become a major force in anything that has anything to do with the internet. And so will Facebook.

LAOS you just gotta do everything bigtime hey? Good Luck man, thanks for the reviews

Update! I scored a first generation ipod nano off of a friend. I quickly got rockbox on there and the entire (or damn close to it) library of NSF files on there, all 14mb of it. And I LOVE it. Now to start collecting SPC files

setzertrancer, as long as it is any OCReMix track or any Official OCR Album Release and as long as the sources are properly credited then you're good to go. YOu can totally enter, though as of yet there is no prize, not even voting. There is a viewing party that will be announced and an irc channel will be set up for it, everyone watches the videos together and we all laugh or cry or zomg about them. Its quite fun.

If things go very well, I'll have an albums worth of metalish songs completed by the summers end. If that happens, I'd like to put an album together and possibly sell it. Some of the tracks are originals and some are covers of VG themes, and thats where my question comes in. first off, what is my due dilligence if I release this album publicly? How does it change if I want to sell the album? I'd be very lucky if more than 200 people bought it, I don't know if that affects anything. I really don't know where to start and how far I need to go with this. Thanks for your help!

Oh Man, I am stoked to watch these Rayza. I can't stream worth anything now so I'll check them later for sure, thanks for posting these. You really nail your tracks so I'm betting there'll be some good info here.

Things didn't quite pan out as I expected, my copy of ODST still hasn't showed up yet and as I have been sick, I've been staying home and not going out to my friends to play there. I was pumped to play with you guys, but I haven't even been on XBL to friend up, lol. I'm on the upswing, I should get out of the house soon. I think there's still 4 more days of beta left, hopefully I'll be good to go before it ends.

Thanks for the helpful answers guys, I'll definitely give Wordpress a shot soon here, and from the sounds of things I'll probably feel the same way about it as you do, BGC.