[QUOTE=Spaceman Spiff;18729473]Holla. Haven't logged on in forever.[/QUOTE]

Holy shit Zack! What's going on man? How's the band?

Since you were last on I've returned to BC to make disgustingly huge amounts of coin... hell maybe I was still there when you were last on. But I was home for six months and it was :cool: as shit. Making pipeline monies so I can convince a buddy of mine to tour our tunes around the country next summer.

Holy shit, I forgot to mention when I posted this tell me about how you met Jeff Mangum after his Toronto set and now he's guesting on Capital H's next EP. also did you kids do some more recording and whatnot.

Hey Joel is the 'zoom' in yr. usertitle pertaining to zoom pedals? Cause they are pretty shit.

yay, I can haz employment

Nice. Where you workin'?

Urban Barn. It's a furniture/decor store. I start on Monday.

'grats man, hope it goes well!

That's actually awesome Ben. That's one of the things that would put me off just moving somewhere new - not being guaranteed a job. Especially with how things are for jobs right now. Don't know if its the same in Canada, but there's just nothing around at the moment :/ So yeah, massive props :)

Sounds like it's shit trying to find work in America right now?

:(

Yeah, it was hard to find a job out here, to be sure. I've been looking pretty much non-stop for the last 5 weeks.

Thanks, guys!

Yeah, it blows my mind how tough it is to find work in Vancouver, not to mention the cost of living to pay scale ratio is absolutely fucked. A friend of mine works as a heavy duty mechanic down south and makes like twelve dollars an hour, where up here heavy duties generally make like thirty-plus. reeeee-diculous.

Yeah... I'm getting paid minimum wage, but I do also get commission and bonuses from promotions, so it works out a lot better than minimum.

[QUOTE=FlamingCouch;18731508]Holy shit Zack! What's going on man? How's the band?

Since you were last on I've returned to BC to make disgustingly huge amounts of coin... hell maybe I was still there when you were last on. But I was home for six months and it was :cool: as shit. Making pipeline monies so I can convince a buddy of mine to tour our tunes around the country next summer.

Holy shit, I forgot to mention when I posted this tell me about how you met Jeff Mangum after his Toronto set and now he's guesting on Capital H's next EP. also did you kids do some more recording and whatnot.

Hey Joel is the 'zoom' in yr. usertitle pertaining to zoom pedals? Cause they are pretty shit.[/QUOTE]

Sounds pretty cool. I didn't meet Jeff Mangum, unfortunately, but I got to go to both of the shows the he played here. The sets were mostly the same, but with a couple of songs switched. Second night he played April 8th, which was amazing. He didn't play Two-Headed Boy either night, which I guess is the only thing I could complain about if you put a gun to my head and forced me to think of some fault in either show.

Band is on hiatus right now, I guess we'll see what happens in the future. I'm still working away and writing music, trying to get to a point where I can comfortably sing and play. I've got some songs finished (just guitar) that I'm writing for an album, which I don't really know what I'll do with yet. Just doing what I want to do, really. I'm pretty proud of the stuff I'm writing, so I look forward to recording it when it's all done.

[quote=BenJammin;18732045]Yeah... I'm getting paid minimum wage, but I do also get commission and bonuses from promotions, so it works out a lot better than minimum.[/quote]
Minimum is a hell of a lot better than living off your savings, or having nothing though! But I'm sure you know this ;)

I can't imagine what it was like to be working when there was no minimum wage in England. Must have been grim for a lot of people.

What's the minimum wage in America?

I think it's $15 an hour here once you're 20 or over, it scares me to think of trying to live on a wage like that.

That said, the lowest paying job I've had was $10/hour cash in hand, but I wasn't paying rent or anything at the time so it didn't matter as much.

15.00 AUD = 15.5894 CAD

According to xe.com

That's a pretty decent wage here, but that's likely because our cost of living is lower than yours.

Minimum wage in Canada, and I think in the US, varies by province/state, with no federal legislation on it.

Where I am now in Canada, minimum wage is $9.75/hour, or about $9.40/hour AUD. Which is only a living wage if you're only providing for yourself, working full time, and paying rent, as opposed to a mortgage.

the us varies quite a bit. i think federal minimum wage is like 6.50, but california minimum is 8.50, and San Francisco minimum is like 9.75

Heavy, the cost of living here is one of the highest in the world I think, which is a real fucking hassle.

[quote=gaslight;18732981]Heavy, the cost of living here is one of the highest in the world I think, which is a real fucking hassle.[/quote]

Wow. That's crazy. Mind if I ask what rent is like for a cheap, but decent, apartment over there?

Our minimum wage is £6.08 for over 21s. I don't know how that compares with you guys really, but you'd have to be doing a 40 hour week on that, taking advantage of tax breaks and living in a pretty cheap place to make ends meet I'd think. I make about £8.80 an hour at the moment, which is reasonable I guess. I'm only paying board at home though at the moment, so I can live comfortably enough on about a 25 hour week.

[QUOTE=gaslight;18731973]Sounds like it's shit trying to find work in America right now?

:([/QUOTE]

Not only am I current unemployed for month number three, but in the last two years I have been unemployed for a total of nine months. Only once because of termination, the rest were lay-offs.

And truthfully, America is really not doing that bad at all. It makes me think about South Park "Margaritaville" where everyone began to act as if the economy was a vengeful deity striking out at it's minions in rage. If we would only provide bailout or grant funds to companies willing to successfully create long-term jobs in the 20%+ margin instead of every "good idea" that will "eventually create jobs" and the economy would probably stabilize.
[QUOTE=fatbandit;18733498]Our minimum wage is £6.08 for over 21s. I don't know how that compares with you guys really, but you'd have to be doing a 40 hour week on that, taking advantage of tax breaks and living in a pretty cheap place to make ends meet I'd think. I make about £8.80 an hour at the moment, which is reasonable I guess. I'm only paying board at home though at the moment, so I can live comfortably enough on about a 25 hour week.[/QUOTE]

That's abut 9.50 in American currency, a DAMN good job by the standards of my home state. The most money I have ever earned is 12.75 in middle management of a huge chain of stores; the average income per person in Louisiana was around 19-24k/hr last I checked.

That said, when I begin working at the age of 16, minimum wage was only 5.75, but now it has been bumped up to 7.25, which is a huge deal for the quickness in which they advanced it. (2 years total)

When I say comfortably by the way, I mean I actually have some degree of disposable income. To live with just life's essentials, you can obviously scale things back a lot! If you want to pay your rent and live on ramen noodles, then you don't need too much money :p

[QUOTE=FunkMetalBass;18733101]Wow. That's crazy. Mind if I ask what rent is like for a cheap, but decent, apartment over there?[/QUOTE]

This is by no means scientific but here's a rough guide based on a quick online search with a real estate page.

The cheapest studio apartment (1 carspace, 1 bathroom) in Sydney city area is $290pw, and for amusement, the most expensive one bedroom apartments in the Sydney city area are over $1000pw.

Where I live (a suburb about a 40 minute train ride north of the city), for a 1 bedroom/1 carspace deal, the cheapest on show at the moment is $300pw.

In Newcastle, which is 160km or so north of Sydney, again the same kind of place starts in the low $300s.

In Wollongong, 80km south of Sydney, they start in the high $200s.

The absolute cheapest anywhere near Sydney is about $175 to $200pw, but they tend to be in fucking shithouse suburbs that you wouldn't want to live in, or you can get a room is some kind of shared house where you don't even have your own private bathroom/kitchen/laundry but, that's not something I'd even consider. I'll leave that to the hippie/indie communes.

If I was on minimum wage here, I'd have to be working a 42 hour week to cover my expenses, and that's before I've eaten any food, paid for cable TV/internet, bought petrol, etc. To match my income on minimum wage I'd have to work like 60-100 hours depending on whether it's been a good week or not.

That sounds awful but here we are really lucky with pay rates and things, I don't know anyone who is even close to minimum wage. I'm fortunate to have decent paying jobs, even if a lot of the money disappears to expenses as soon as I get it.

Australia is pretty much the best place to live in the world right now.

Ryan (from here) was on like almost 20AUD for working in a Petstore. Equivalent NZD to that is $26 and our minimum wage is $13, which is almost what you'd get for working at a petstore here, maybe like $15.

Rent changes from city to city. Like in Auckland, our Pseudo second capital city, in the city it starts at like $300-400 for 1 bedroom places. Even in a not so good suburb place where I was staying we were getting ass raped for $390 (way over market value) a week for a 2 bedroom unit (attached to other houses). Luckily that was split between me and my partner and my brother was living with us. But where I live now, which is not a middle of no where city, you can get a 2 bedroom place for like $200-250incl.

This was working a job that paid $16 an hour plus $5k a year in bonuses (before tax), which I always got.

Now I moved back home to Napier and am unemployed (by choice) till Xmas. I've got some things lined up after Xmas but for now it's so good to not be working and not having to pay rent. *joy*

I get very jealous of people who don't pay rent, even just for a month it's such a huge advantage for saving cash.

Well when you have zero income it becomes a bit of moot point :(

But until now, totally been with you on that one.

I don't really pay much rent right now but I want to! Can't wait to move out, it's just not massively practical right now. I dont want to move out on my own, but all my friends would be hell to live with :/ don't want to live with strangers if I can help it!

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18734117]Well when you have zero income it becomes a bit of moot point :(

But until now, totally been with you on that one.[/QUOTE]

Get a job you dirty hippie :p.

If you're one of those Occupy New Zealand protesters I'll shoot you myself.

Haha well I have been working on my pop production and producing skills if that counts! People have made very healthy livings off of 1 4 5 and 1 4 6 5 (or variations of) so here's hoping I write the next pop smash hit!

**knows this will never happen**

Your I IV V comment just reminded me of Status Quo lol. I actually like them a little more every time I hear them, worryingly :|

[quote=gaslight;18734232]Get a job you dirty hippie :p.

If you're one of those Occupy New Zealand protesters I'll shoot you myself.[/quote]
Lol and no I am not! I don't even follow it, I could care less really.

[QUOTE=Convectuoso;18734267]Haha well I have been working on my pop production and producing skills if that counts! People have made very healthy livings off of 1 4 5 and 1 4 6 5 (or variations of) so here's hoping I write the next pop smash hit!

**knows this will never happen**[/QUOTE]

Nah, I think kids like dubstep now, or techno or something. I don't know, it all sounds like Star Trek to me.