There is quite a bit of bragging and blog like posting below, so turn back now if you want, I'm just excited about something, and I need to share.

So as many of you know I recently got an internship at Serjical Strike Records in L.A. So far, it's been a pretty surreal experience- I've gone to shows with Serj, I went to the Transformers premier, Bruno after party, Tom Morello's Bachelor Party, I met Coldplay and Gwyneth Paltrow, and the list goes on...

Now, all of this stuff is really cool, and I am grateful that I've been given the opportunity to do all of this cool stuff, but today, things got a whole lot cooler.

My first day on the job I pitched an idea to sell more CD's in the Serjical Strike Store by implementing a points system where all of the CD's we sell a lot of are worth less points, and CD's that don't sell well at all, those are worth more points. The object is, people will buy CD's that they might not usually buy because if they save up enough points, they can earn some sweet prizes. Within the first 3 hours of implementing the points system we made over $200 in profit. GREAT SUCESS! (For an indie label)

A few days later, we got a shipment of shirts in- and I was told to photograph the shirts and put them on the store. Well, after I photographed the shirts, I was caught photoshopping the images for the store. This eventually led to the big news that almost made me crap my pants today.

So during the next few weeks I was asked to photoshop and create various images for promoting various bands and stuff like that-

and then today I was asked to design and create the layout for Serj Tankian's new CD / DVD coming out this September. This, to me- is beyond mind boggling. Not only will I get a credit inside of the album, but my design is going to be in stores all around the world, and seen by hundreds of thousands of people. On top of that, I am creating album art for one of my favorite artists of all time. Surreal.

Sorry for this self-masturbatory post (I even slipped in some plugs- forgive me), but if I don't let this out now I'm going to scream, and I don't think the neighbors are going to like that one bit.

That's pretty awesome, to be with the people you idolize and even help them succeed.
Awesome possum.

Props!

Sneak an obscure Massassi in-joke into the CD cover. It'd be lulz.

That is seriously awesome, though. Congrats.

Go SAJN go! How long are you in LA?

Big-ups to you sir. Congrats.

I'm here until the end of August, and then I'll be out here for an entire semester (hopefully working for Serjical Strike again) in half a year- and then after that I'll graduate, at which point I'll be living out here, and possibly working full time for Serjical Strike Records.

So tell me about LA, Is it really as much of a hellhole as I have been led to believe?

Pretty cool.

L.A. is a great place. Hollywood is garbage, but it's nice for going to shows and such. Most of the good shows are on the Sunset strip, but there are some nice places in / around hollywood such as The Troubadour. Overall, it's a really big sprawled out city- it isn't crammed in like NY City. If anything Hollywood is the NY City of California, but aside from that- it's awesome. It hasn't rained ONCE since I've been here, there is no humidity, and most people are super nice. There are some great hiking spots, there is a lot of privacy compared to most cities, and the prices (unless you are in Beverly Hills) are VERY reasonable. Housing is a bit pricey, but if you shop around you can find a cheap enough place, and traffic can be somewhat of a bother, but so far I haven't had any massive traffic jams (although, they are known to happen)

You're lucky to have missed the traffic jams. That's my least favorite part of CA. I'm planning a four day trip to the LA area in August; would be cool to meet up. Also, if you're here the semester after next, you should visit Seattle!

I demand that you slip ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD in somehow.

Good stuff man. That sounds like an awesome ride, good for you you deserve it.

Great idea! I hope the job works out for you.

That is mighty awesome, Sajn! Big congrats to you!

Dude, that is so cool! It's really awesome to see you being so successful.

Major congrats.

I think it should feature Nailface.

Brilliant

SAJN, since you are at Serjical Strike, have you ever seen Buckethead around, or have you heard anything about a new collab between Serj and Buckethead. Please tell me!

And congrats

Buckethead is still around, he's one of our more successful artists on the label. He is signed to us for at least one more album, but is he working on it right now? Who knows. Buckethead pretty much does what he wants, when he wants. Our door is open for him, and eventually he'll give us one more album, but at the moment he's not recording anything. Serj is busy with his new solo album (classical and jazz album) so he's focusing on himself at the moment.

/so jealous

I jizzrabbit jackhammered in my longjohns when I read this news. This is some hot sexy magic that you've got going on SAJN, you mediawhore.

Let us know how it goes! And if you can, post your work on it here?

sajn should make up a name like "perez hilton" and blog about his media life

Awesome stuff! Good luck w/ designing the cover.

EPIC JIZZ FACE

i envy your awesome life

i want to move to the U.S now

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  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Dude, totally epic. I'm happy for you

A bit jealous though. XD

wtf are you talking about LA is fantastic

And, very cool SAJN

this... if anyone asks tell them the devil made you do it

Totally yes on the obscure massassi reference. Put a temple somewhere.

or try to sneak "mb is fat" in there somewhere

or a phallus

that wouldn't be much of a massassi in-joke

any such in-joke should be massassi specific

THIS!

Use an Aurabesh font FTW!

Okay guys, the album is going to print, I got some little easter eggs hidden in there- luckily Serj didn't notice.

Hahah! Is those the actual covers, otherwise? I like them, but "Symphony of" is too skewed and hard to read.

I was given 6GB of photos and told to 'go crazy' and design it however I wanted it. Serj and the people at WB have kind of a 'vision' in mind, so I'm designing about 4 or 5 different rough concept pieces and they are going to pick one for me to go all the way on. That is one of the concepts. The others are too dark (for my taste), but we'll see what Serj picks in the end. Also, yeah, the text is a bit too skewed, and that isn't even the official name of the album >.<

Serj thinks 'Symphony of the Dead' is going to confuse people into thinking it's some kind of Grateful Dead cover album- but the rest of us are trying to convince him that he's bat **** crazy and that nobody thinks that.

All this is pretty amazing. Good luck to you.

No one would think that, I agree. 90% of Serj's target audience won't know what The Grateful Dead is...

Well, it doesn't matter what we name it because his hardcore fans will buy it anyway, BUT the reason Serj MIGHT think that is because this CD/DVD is a live performance of him performing his rock songs as classical pieces (not S&M style, there isn't a band- just an orchestra). So we are essentially using this album as a stepping stone to his next album (which is strictly classical / jazz), so what we want to do is appeal to an older audience, and an audience more interested in classical music than rock. So some of those people might be Dead-Heads, but like I said, nobody is going to make that connection anyway.