January 2008

In my last post I talked about how well the Myspace marketing campaign is going. Well I believe that you can’t win a war with just one type of combat, you need multiple forms of combat, air raids, ground support, naval backup, etc. With marketing it is the same way. I could spend all my time focused on the Myspace aspect, but then I wouldn’t be dividing it up and putting all my eggs in one basket. If I set up numerous marketing strategies then I could have potentially that much more success.

Right now I have bulletins being posted every 30 minutes. They are different bulletins being posted each time, but they are posted and the previous bulletin is deleted so as to not annoy the people I am posting to. That is all fine and dandy, but what about the people who don’t look at bulletins? Well that is where I take the Myspace comments that I have and comment on their Myspace. Granted the ones I have don’t work for people who are already my friend, but the potential is there once I have more up. As you can see you can take one type of marketing idea and spit it up so you could go another direction. In terms of warfare imagine having one set of troops go one way while another goes another way but both end up meeting up and surrounding the enemy, that is what this strategy is like.

Now As I was saying before, putting all the eggs into the Myspace marketing campaign is stupid, I will need other ways to get the word out there, which is where an email marketing campaign comes in handy. Do you know all of those sites that say click here if you don’t want to receive emails from our partners regarding important products? Well that is where an email marketing campaign comes into play. You can sign up to be a partner of that site and if someone doesn’t click that box then you can send them email.

Email marketing is fine and dandy, but sending emails out manually can be a waste of time and money. That is where software projects come in handy. You can buy software to automate the email marketing process, or you could hire a programmer to program one for you. In the end it is probably easier to buy a project that is already done, after all you don’t want to spend the money reinventing the wheel right?

Marketing can be a powerful tool especially if you are just trying to understand the online business world. Take things and try them out, if it doesn’t work for you, then move on. It doesn’t hurt to try something new every once in a while, but don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

The Myspace marketing campaign that I have seems to be coming along better than I had ever expected. I had a projected goal of 200 friends by December 31st, 2007, but I failed that goal horribly. I thought I wouldn’t be able to make a thousand friends a month, but I seem to have been horribly wrong. I had set up a goal for January 31st at 2800 friends. Right now I am close to 3400 friends.

After I had reached the goal of 2800 friends I set a goal for February 29th for 4000 friends. I think I am going to pass that goal. RIght now I have about 10 pending friend requests and over 1000 requests I sent out that haven’t been answered yet. I am trying to get more people to spread the word about Lep’s Lair, and it seems to be working a bit. I know I need more content and I am going to be really trying to get some in the coming weeks (most of my pictures seem to have been deleted on my computer). I will try as hard as I can to get some new stuff soon. The number one priorities right now are the Spiderman 3 synopsis (I need to sit down and watch it again) and a brand new gallery for my stuff using the WordPress engine.

Wintereenmas is the celebration of video games. It is a week long celebration, but the season is the whole month of January, much like Christmas. The celebration can be anything you want, but most choose to celebrate by playing video games. I have been playing Assassin’s Creed since Christmas and I am trying to expand my gameplay this holiday season. I still have Resident Evil 4 to play and Mass Effect, both of which are still unopened. Krissy’s sister also gave me Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 so I want to play that as well (I loved the first one).

It seems that I will have my work cut out for me to get to all these games in the next week, especially since work is going to be picking up either tonight or tomorrow, but I would like to add a new game to the roster, Nitto 1320 Legends – Free Live Online Drag Racing Game. It is a drag racing game so you aren’t controlling the steering wheel, there’s no reason to, you are just controlling the pedals. I guess I would understand how to drive it better if I knew how to drive a stick, you need to control the clutch and the accelerator in order to move in the game.

I have played a few races and lost everytime, only by a few milliseconds though. I guess I need to figure out when the right time to change gears is and how I can go as fast as I can right out of the gate. All in all it is a fun game though and I am sure that I will play it every now and then. Who knows maybe I will be able to meet up with some people to play online if I ever get Burnout Paradise, or maybe even Halo.

People will be dying on April 29, 2008. Cars will be hijacked, cops will be shot and blown up. Snipers on roofs will take out many people. It might possibly be the best day of the year.

I am of course talking about the release date of Grand Theft Auto 4. This anticipated title was pushed back from October and they announced the release date yesterday. I figured I would wait until it was officially Wintereenmas to make the announcement on my website. I can’t wait for this to come out, and rumor has it that there will be an online aspect to the game as well. Though nothing has been announced officially, I wonder if that means that you can start shooting up your friends in an online game. I guess we will have to wait and see.

Krissy and I are both trying to loose weight. It seems to be a stalemate though, sometimes we loose, sometimes we don’t. We aren’t following any specific diet plan or any specialty foods like Nutrisystem, we are just trying to eat better and exercise a little more.

I have been looking into weight loss success stories and they seem to have one thing in common, they follow a specific plan. Whether it be Nutrisystem or South Beach, they follow a plan and loose weight. I was looking through some of the plans and I saw that there is a 25% off Weight Watchers Online coupon. The coupon expires on Jan 31, so I don’t think I will have the money by then.

I have seen what Weight Watchers can do. Krissy’s grandmother lost a lot of weight on Weight Watcher’s. We don’t see her that often, a few times a year at most and the last time we saw her she had lost a lot of weight. She is staying on Weight Watcher’s though, even after she has finished loosing the weight. I guess she’s doing it because she doesn’t want to gain back what she had lost, I really don’t know. The other diets I am not so sure about because I have never seen the results first hand, but I know Weight Watcher’s works.

Happy Wintereenmas everyone. I started the celebration early this morning by downloading a free 360 game and playing it for a little while. It wasn’t as good as I had hoped, maybe I will play it again, maybe I won’t, we’ll see. If I can get some achievements from it then I might play it again soon. Anyway this is the week of Wintereenmas so I will be talking a lot about video games this week. Hope everyone is in the holiday spirit.

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. Now traditionally Valentine’s Day is the woman’s holiday, she’s the one who gets taken out to dinner, the one who gets flowers and presents, and traditionally men do all this and more than likely get some at night. Wouldn’t it be great though if the men got something more than a little after dinner loving? Well now they just might. See Overstock is running a Overstock’s “Game O Love”. What it is is you sign up for the contest and then you select the prize you want your wife or girlfriend to get you.

With Overstock’s Valentine’s Day Game you could win prize you want, like a watch, a necklace, a printer, or anything they have in stock. Personally I would go for the all in one printer, its practical, takes up less room than the printer and scanner we have now, and Krissy could also use it for the Mac. Everyone should go sign up for the Game O Love, it isn’t just for men. Women if your husband or boyfriend is cheap then maybe you would like to enter this contest to get a great prize as a present from them. I doubt I will win, because I never win anything, but it can’t hurt to try right?

Heath Ledger was a great actor. I loved him in 10 things I Hate About You, and I couldn’t wait to see him in the Joker this summer. As most of you have heard he died Tuesday, most likely due to a drug overdose. He is scheduled to be laid to rest on Friday and that should be the end of it. That isn’t the end of it though, an anti-gay church (which I will not name because I don’t want to give them publicity) is planning on protesting his funeral because he played a homosexual cowboy in Brokeback Mountain.

I don’t see anything wrong with homosexuality. I do see a problem with religion though, and this is a big problem right here. Why? Simple, if you are going to protest his funeral and disrespect not only him but his family and friends then how is that fair? How is it fair to criticize someone who isn’t able to respond? Yes he played a gay cowboy and you are going to stand there and protest because he chose to take the role? That movie has probably helped more gay people than that Church ever will.

Anybody who chooses to do something like this should not only be spit on, but should also be condemned to Hell (assuming if there is a Hell at al). Being gay isn’t a crime and it isn’t something for religion or the government to decide on. People choose their religion, if he wasn’t part of your religion then why does it matter to you? Why do people care so much about how they live their lives? Why is it so wrong for two men or two women to be happy together? Why is it more socially acceptable for straight people to stay married and miserable for years than it is for two people who want to get married to be happy the rest of their lives?

I say fuck that church and any church who won’t give gay people a chance. Fuck the haters and the priests and ministers who look down on gay people. Fuck the bigots and those who don’t support the right for gay people to be happy together. And if you don’t like it then fuck you too. I may not be gay, but I know what is right and wrong and denying people the right to be happy is wrong.

I want to start investing in the stock market. I mean I know the market isn’t the best right now so I would wait until things start to recover a bit more, but once it does I might take some money and invest. Investing is something that I have been interested in for a while. I think it could really be an easy way to make money, especially if I can get some information on the stocks like statistics, comparison of stocks, that kind of thing. I mean with the right tools I think anyone can make money in a good market, the problem right now is that it isn’t a good market, not at all.

I have been trying to take some more pictures, better pictures with my camcorder so that I can make some more Myspace comments. I have been playing around with the settings, but I haven’t gotten the optimal ones yet. Krissy has been the unsuspecting victim of my tests though since she has been on the Mac, so I can play with the settings while she has no idea that she’s getting filmed. At least she’s a good sport when she doesn’t realize it.

I love York. I grew up under an hour away from the city, so when I could drive, I was going there almost every other week. There is something about it that makes me want to go back every time I leave. I mean between the buildings and the sights, everything is just so different there, it’s just captivating.

No other city is like New York. Sure they may have buildings and museums, but does any other city have sights like the Statue of Liberty, or the Empire State Building? I haven’t been to half of the places that I would like to, maybe one day I will be able to take a New York City tour with Trusted Tours & Attractions.

They make sure they take you to all of the most popular places in New York. From the museums to the historic landmarks, if it is in Manhattan they will make sure you see it. They offer sightseeing tours in almost every major city in the United States so they know what to do and what people want to see when they go on one of their tours. They even put out a newsletter letting people know of the exciting new things that they offer. If you are looking to go on a tour, try them. They are sure to show you everything you’ve ever wanted to see in New York or any city you travel to.

When I started promoting my website on Myspace, I knew that it wasn’t going to end there. I didn’t know when, but I knew eventually I would have Myspace comments and/or page decorations on my website. Well now I do. You can get them in the Funbox section. There isn’t many there, but I will be making more. Anything there is free for the taking, so have fun.