A few nights ago I had a vision. Not a spiritual vision, nor a religious vision. I saw myself in a shop. I saw myself working in a shop. Working in a shop that I owned. The shop sold lead mimiatures for wargaming and roleplaying, as well as trading card games and other related merchandise. The shop also doubled as a gaming club and hobbystore, a place where people could meet and roleplay, paint models or learn tips and tricks from the experts (me). Needless to say, I do not own a shop. But the vision made so much sense, I now want to own a shop. Not just any shop. I want to own the shop in the vision. For the second time in my life, I know exactly what I want to do day in day out. When I was a kid I used to play video games any chance I could get. Crappy computer games at home, kick ass arcade machines when we went on holiday (you had to be 18 to get into the arcades round my place). For the longest time I wanted nothing more than to design computer games for a living. I did well at maths in school, and enjoyed computer programming. I went to university and got a Computing Honours degree. I'm officially a Batchelor of Science, for all the good it's done me. I got a job working at Codemasters for a year. That one year shattered every childhood dream I had into fucking dust. I realised with fucking dread that the video games industry had gone the way of virtually every fucking thing else in the world. It was no longer driven by artistic flair and innovation. It was driven by fucking money. As soon as video games hit the mainstream, pople thought "Fuck! we can get rich off this shit!" and started churning out clone after clone after ill conceived fucking clone, while the people who really cared about the games drifted further away and got more and more pissed off. In an interview once, Chad asked me the following question: "You're given a gun and 100 rounds of untraceable ammunition. Who do you kill?" to which I replied at the time along the lines of "I don't think I want to kill anybody." If I was asked that same question again today, I'd answer like this: I'd stop someone in the street and offer them a choice. I'd offer to play them a piece of music of their choice, or a million pounds cash. And if anyone asked fr the cash I'd blow them the fuck away. And then I'd stop another person and ask them the same question. And I'd keep fucking going until I ran out of ammo. And it still wouldn't be enough. So now I want to own a shop. It's all I want to do. I want to sell lead figures, and play Dungeons and Dragons with nerds, and teach kids how to paint models, and all sorts of geeky nerdy stuff. I'm never going to be rich. I don't care. I've only ever had 2 real goals in life as I think back (well, maybe 2 and a half). The Video games, and now the shop. So this is where the hard work starts. I presently have approximately fuck all pounds sterling in the bank. In order to open a fair sized shop, and buy enough stock to keep the place running for a year and still turn a profit, I'm going to need about twenty grand more than I have. I'm not going to find that money lying around, so I need to sweet talk the bank manager and convince them it's a good idea. Of course, I know it's a good idea. There's no local competition, and there's tons of people in town who buy this stuff. But The money givers will need some reports or graphs or some such shit. And that's where I fall down. I have a wealth of Maths knowledge. I can program computers. I can understand flowcharts and circuit diagrams and I can build computers. But what the fuck do I know about business? I spend half my life giving money away or helping people out for free. Where the fuck do I learn how to be an arsehole? Well, that's where my brother comes in. He studied business. He sucked at maths and science, but he could sell sand to the arabs. He used to rent out his video games to his friends for cash. Fuck, he used to rent out MY video games to his friends for cash. He knows a little bit about making money. Working together I think we can do this. But the more I think about it, the more frustrated I get. If you want to make money, you need to have money in the first place. And the amount of money you need to start out these days is getting more and more every year. There's less and less independant businesses everywhere. The towns are littered with chain after shitty fucking chain store, and there's no room for the Indies. And why not? Because they can't fucking afford it. I fucking hate chain stores. "Hey! Come inside, we'll give you a limited selection of popular but not necessarily high quality products, at a ridiculous price! What's more, if you have any questions about anything we sell, you'll be fobbed off with some bullshit answer, because we haven't got a fucking clue! And remember, our sales staff are paid fuck all, while the bosses get paid ten times that amount and get to lounge around all day, probably being fellated expertly by a high class prostitute with a mouthful of honey! Have a nice day, you cunt!" I fucking HATE CHAIN STORES. So I have a dream. And I'm now committed to making that dream a reality. It may take a while, but I will not give up. Now, for fuck's sake, all of you stop shopping at chain stores. Hmmm. Bit of off topic swearing today. haven't done that in a while. FUCK YOU BUSH. (that one's for Chad)