Yesterday we had our company meetup. It was pretty cool to use video conferencing to join the company from the US the UK, Australia and France. We basically could see entire teams in rooms, we could see ourselves and various other faces appearing from all over on the screen. Our CEO did his thing and we all listened. At Bytes we had Whole Company Meetings but we weren't global(nor did we want to) but we kinda got into a whole conference room with finger food to round up the evening but Video conferencing was really cool. We replaced the fingerfood with the pub but whatever. It's a great way to join to see people and ask questions. Anyway I kinda enjoyed that. I'm thinking of getting more of that at my desk, maybe a headphone-mic combo with a video cam. Ah na but maybe.

Had the strangest enlightening thought today. I was sitting in the pub, after work having a beer and I must have just sat down and just then, it hit me - Me in a pub? What am I doing? I don't drink. Why am I here? What has taken me to this point?

So my dissection begins,

I soon realised, part into my 1st beer, that this organised "work drinks" that I found myself at was shiat. Maybe it was because I'm such a loser and I don't have any friends that I soon became irritated by the conversation. But either way I found myself sitting there not really wanting to talk to people about the weather, the stupid episode on TV or how great this new organisational process is for submitting holiday requests forms are, or for that matter what you do, what you don't like and what irritates you.

Somehow, It was like I had gracefully displaced myself from my office chair to the pub - A social nirvana apparently - where you make friends, have fun and enjoy the greatness of your youth, job, life whatever. That doesn't happen at work drinks...you get bored, plain and simple.

It was like herding a group of sheep into a pub, giving them clown outfits and waiting rather desperately for them to do something socially spectacular *for* the company. I'm no sheep, no clown either - Mind you, this lighter thought nearly had me breaking into a breakdance routine but thankfully that soon passed. So I'm not going to do that.

I wondered back a few times to the last few drinks I've attended and tried to list what benefits I gained from each outing and it was sobering that I couldn't think of any. What have I done with my time? What has the 7 beers got me?

And I realised. Im a stat. I'm a stat of people going to the pub, a stat of the group from work wanting to be there, a stat of people trying to do the right thing. a stat, a stat a stat.

Im not a stat.

I want to be the guy who's enjoying his life, every moment, Work drinks like this is the best way for no one really to take responsibility for wasting your time. My time is precious.


I don't really want to be here.

Why am I here?

I'm not.

I love my playing my guitar at night, in that mid-section between having nothing to do or not wanting to do real stuff, TV sucks and the next thing you want to do is go to bed. I don't know, it's something about being able to create sound(or noise) with the freedom of expression probably rivalled by poetry or painting. Ultimate expression is pretty impossible right now for me as I suck pretty good but I'm ok enough to enjoy what I do. It's great that I can plug in, grab the headset and evaporate into a world that knows no boundaries - limited only by what you want to achieve(so your skill)

So I've got a cool little 6 string which gets some serious mileage(also thinking now, so do my fingers) I've also got a 4 string bass guitar which I'm still getting used to. Bass is that little appreciated undertone that can make or break a sound. I've got to lay down tracks on top if each other to get stuff playing together, which can be pretty cool.

So I've been strumming on my guitars for the last 2 years or so and got to the point that I have recorded(easy!) a loop for my ringtone(anti-climax I know ..) which I genuinely love. I've sent my tracks(easy!) to iTunes(see?) and when I put my playlist settings to shuffle, it brings a smile to my face when im like,"you know what, that's pretty cool sounding" and yeah it's me so I'm biased, but if I like it - how cool is that!? It's odd when I like what I do. It's almost exceedingly cool that I like my own stuff and I genuinely enjoy the experience... isn't that what doing stuff in life should be like - makes you feel Ok?

Anyway so, I couldn't do any of this without my recording equipment(easy, steady on!) which is basically my Mac connected to a MAudio FireWire150 box that I connect my guitars and headphones to(it basically routes everything and connects hardware to software). Like my xbox setup, with wireless headphones - I can pretty much have a total go, at full blast and...no one can hear me. - pretty sweet huh? I love it.

So my approach to this whole music thing is to just find sounds, loops and rhythms that I like and can lengthen I to say a 2-3 minute session. Now the interesting thing is that I make music, not from words which is how one normally shapes sound. That also means that what you get is just guitars & drums(I bring in drum loops). Sometimes when I listen to the stuff, I feel it really needs a voice over it, but whatever - I don't sing. I've put famous recordings of speeches on the tracks like Robert Oppenheimer's "I become death" speech on some which is pretty OK, stuff like that. I've got one with Richard stallman and G W Bush(yeah I'm that cool/sad)

But the point I'm making is I can do anything I want, when I want with no interruption(I can't even hear the phone ringing or the door bell) so I'm totally zoned out - which is great!

Its just something for me, which I think I'd groovy!