big giant circles

International shipping costs are a big ol jagged stick right up the ol' bum. Anyway, I support this album.

I know there's already a deals thread, but I feel like this deserves it's own thread. And also because apparently some people are already lining up for it (lol). http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/with-tents-up-and-generators-humming--shoppers-wait-for-black-friday-142750358.html Anyway, post any worthy BF/CM-related deals that might be coming up here. Maybe we can merge it back with the deals thread when the chaos is over.

The album's out and it's as good as expected. Worth a listen/buy. That is all.

Hope you had a rad birthday dude!

The urge I'm getting to wish you a happy birthday is quite... ...too easy? Happy Birthday Vinnie Vin Bro!

truth spoken

I would definitely recommend hitting up DJP and Liontamer and any of the other staff before myself if you're wanting to do the article specifically on OC ReMix. I'm sure one of 'em will pop in.

Sure, I'd be happy to help, and I'm certain any of the other staff/remixers on here would be happy to answer any questions pertaining to the site as well. Who are you writing the article for?

You founded the USAFA jazz band on '04? Nice, that's when my brother graduated from there. He played trombone in high school, not sure if he ever played it there, I'll have to ask him if he knew about it.

I'll peanut butter you up, tiger. Who needs a rad music festival?

Sounds cool, have fun man!

I wish like crazy I was, but alas.

Stretch goals are officially up, as well as the bonus Outtakes (and trolling BGC) video, featuring djp and Larry and some other OCR faces (and a myriad of other awesome people)

I actually did have the good fortune to meet him in person at the VGL concert in Houston earlier this year, and I had the good pleasure of talking to him about chiptunes and FL Studio (he's a fan of both!). But chances are... very very slim that he'll accept my invitation I think He is an INCREDIBLY nice guy though!

Hey Jandalf! Yes, you'll absolutely receive the image file for your new pixelly face and be free to use it in any way you like, it will be yours! And lastly, well, I'd like to say no, but video games and even non-chiptuney video game music comes close. And also cheese. ************ Also, I have done a lousy job of updating the project so that I can effectively lay out stretch goals and such, but I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple people so that I can 100% lock down my stretch goals before I post them. I do not want to put myself in a position of announcing a goal only to have it fall through because I didn't verify someone's availability/commitment But at any rate, I expect that Big Giant Official Update will drop in the next day or two. Again, thank you all SO much for the kind words and support.

I made this for Ashly Burch/Tiny Tina a few months ago, and it seems relevant to you today http://www.biggiantcircles.com/stuff/TThappybday.mp3 Have a fun bday!

I still feel the sting of this, after all these years. some things never change

With you, the only word I ever hear is "yes".

@Hoboka, it's cool man. I hope I never said anything that was intentionally offensive to you. I have a bad memory, and my years of judging sorta all run together. I know I went through phases as a judge where I was sometimes probably unnecessarily harsh or critical in my feedback, but it wasn't easy being a judge, and years later, I can't imagine it's gotten any easier. So if I ever offended, please forgive as well. Also thanks! I did not write for ME3 sadly, but they did reuse a bunch of my ME2 tracks. I guess that's good A bit off topic too, but while I'm flattered by all the kind remarks about my career, I cannot stress enough that while being hired by Jack to work on the ME2 score was a defining achievement in my life, it by no means "made" my career. At the time it happened, I also made the mistake of assuming it did, and that I would pretty much just get to sit back and let the work come to me. I could not have been farther from the truth. For what it's worth, 2011 (the year after ME2) was the single poorest financial year of my adult working life. I learned the hard way what it REALLY means to put yourself out there, try to network and find more work. And that it simply wasn't enough to have "worked on Mass Effect 2" printed on my business card. It wasn't enough to get me any prospective AAA work, and it alienated me from a LOT of indie developers. It was actually a very unique obstacle to overcome. And by no means am I ungrateful for the experience--I wouldn't trade it for anything--but it was NOT a free ticket to easy street either Almost all of my composer friends/colleagues/contacts I've talked to on the subject will agree (from Danny B to zircon to Alex Brandon to Sam Hulick and many many more), it's a constant struggle to keep any kind of steady (enough) workload. I've even talked to a AAA composer who wrote a full orchestral score to a video game adaptation of a certain HUGE Hollywood movie, and the following year made BARELY a 5 digit income. For the whole year. It is absolutely not easy to make a living with music. And don't get me started on self-employment taxes

There is. It's the $0 tier. And there's an atomic fistbump to go with it. <3

I know it wasn't. Your apology has long since been accepted and if anything, I think Dave is right, that this is a great topic of discussion that I'm glad to see. But, hence my request to change it to its own thread, and not draw any further awkwardness on you. Also, you don't owe me any favors. Fu'git abaht it.

If we're gonna do that, can we maybe split into another thread? I love the idea of a discussion on the topic, but not under the label of "Apology to BGC"

[edit]copy+pasted from my FB response to DJP when the thread was still locked [/edit] Yo! Sorry about my wording in that thread. I wish I could reply in the thread to clear some air, but at the very least I feel compelled to say that in the heat of replying to Brandon's derpness, naturally some of my wording is flawed. I just wanted you to know that when I said "moved on" I absolutely did not mean it in the way you seem to have taken it, and I regret that I couldn't think of a more effective way of conveying what I meant. I do want to point out that, while I agree with your principle based on your interpretation, to me there absolutely *is* a difference between when I was writing music as a hobby and working shitty jobs at quick-lube stations or Home Depot and that magical moment when I realized I could actually write music full time for my paycheck (as I'd wanted to do all along). Would "leveled up to writing music professionally" have been a better choice of words then? I know it still implies some degree of categorical thinking, but seeing as making the transition to writing music for a living IS an advancement of a certain kind (and I really do think most people would agree), I feel I'm justified in conveying that basic principle at least. I definitely have not moved on in the sense that I will never write anything for OCR again (independent or album project-wise), never comment on any thread that doesn't have to do with one of my projects, never encourage others to check out the site, never share OCR news & such on my own network, of course not. Far from it. And of course you know that since "going pro", like Jake, I've still remixed for OCR. That said, I confess there is a degree of validity to the accusation of how little I contribute to the forums that I feel guilty for--I probably should make a bit more effort to visually interact from time to time. That said, I've finally learned in recent years that for whatever reason there's a LOT of negativity on internet forums. It's not just OCR--it doesn't matter what the clique or theme is, there's just an abundance of hateful/judgemental/elitist people that infect virtually every internet forum I've ever read from, whether as a registered member, passing by, google searching, or otherwise. I even speculated on this yesterday - https://twitter.com/BigGiantCircles/status/382561540177534977 But it absolutely does exist on OCR. And it's probably no secret that I don't deal well with it, and like many people I hate the idea of someone getting a last word in that slights me somehow, and then I feel compelled to waste hours of my time engaging in pointless (and usually very wordy) debates that truly do little more than upset my mood and cause me to lie awake in bed. (I don't consider this that, because you weren't attacking or snarking me in anyway). But Meteo and Brandon, I feel their responses were, and they were also riddled with resentful ignorance. And aside from those two, there's a handful of other people who IMO consistently dominate the forums with snarky condescension and constant negativity. And maybe pulling out of virtually all forum partipation together is a weak way to handle it, but it did remove a lot of that negativity from my life and free up a lot of wasted time. And over the years I generally managed to achieve a fairly unanimous "nice guy" status, which I'm both thankful for and more than a little amazed by, because while I do strive to actually BE a nice guy, I've definitely got more than my share of vices. I tend to blow up and unload on people from time to time usually in a quite unnecessary fashion, and occasionally I play the "Eff it, I've had enough and I don't care what people think, this is what I'm gonna say" card, which is not very characteristic of a nice guy. And then sometimes I just make bad judgement calls. And let's not leave out honest mistakes (like poorly wording a sentiment, such as "moved on to the next level of writing music"). At any rate, despite all that, I will try to pop in and be more visibly active on the forums from now on, even if that just means avoiding hot topics and debate (which to me will not always be easy) and just throwing a small comment in here and there. I'm still writing video game remixes, but I racked up a rather large IOU bill from Impostor Nostalgia that I'm still paying off (I've done several free remixes for Danny, C418, Disasterpeace, Josh Whelchel, Alex, Souleye, and I still have a rather large to-do list for various other people I owe favors too) so my absence from OCR projects is more because I just have a lot of catching up to do first. But I promise, OCR has not seen the last of BGC remixes. Anyway, you may already know, but I'll gladly acknowledge any second of any day that I probably would not be doing what I'm doing for a living now if not for OCR, and I'm very grateful to the community, the site, and you for that. It's never been my intent to offend anyone there, and I apologize for any poor conveyance of my feelings in the past, present, and future. I had a blast hanging with you guys at PAX, I wish I could have done more of it. I'll continue to promote and shoutout to OCR in every single interview or PR-thing I will ever be a part of. My kickstarter is doing better than I'd hoped, and I'm sure you can relate it's both a very exciting and stressful time, and requires basically a full-time amount of juggling and updating. In hindsight, maybe I should have just ignored Brandon. But what happened happened, and I only hope there's no weirdness between you and I. You've always been a good friend, and I hope I never do anything to upset that.