January 2008

I have never played paintball. I see it played on television and I imagine playing it would be like playing a real life Halo. I mean think about it, different weapons, shooting people, I think it could be the closest thing to Halo in real life. Granted there are some differences like no grenades or recharging shields. Maybe it’s just me, but that is how I would look at it if I ever played it.

I would love to play, but paintball is expensive. Guns, ammunition, masks, it can really add up. I know people who love to use discount paintball websites and that is fine if you already own some of the equipment, but it is still a bit of money. Maybe if I buy the gun first then the ammo and then finally the facemask a few weeks later it wouldn’t be so bad. I would love to play, I just need to get the money together first.

The newest addition to the Funbox are avatars. I have had them made for a while, but I never put them up anywhere. Use them as your avatar on a forum, as your gravatar, on your Myspace, I don’t care, just use them. I am going to be making more soon, so check back if you don’t see one you like. If you have any suggestions for wallpaper, avatars or anything then let me know and I will see what I can do.

It seems like Krissy and I are on the move a lot lately. She is learning to drive, might have a new job soon, and I might be having to travel from state to state more often than I do now. With all this traveling, and with the fact that my car doesn’t have a working cigarette lighter, it might be good if I invest in an extracell phone battery. I don’t know when she will hear about the job, but they seemed interested in hiring her when she spoke with them yesterday, and if she does get hired then we will definitely need one becuase if the battery dies, the roads here are dead in the winter. Gotta make sure she is safe after all.

So I have FINALLY added the Funbox section of my website. Now what is the funbox? Well right now all it has it Wallpapers, but eventually it will have other things like Forum avatars, Myspace graphics, all of that stuff. Go and check out the wallpapers and let me know what you think. There will be more coming, I promise.

Christmas has made me a lot lighter in the wallet. Valentine’s Day is just a few weeks away and I need to figure out what to get Krissy. I have been looking through online coupons, but they don’t really help when I don’t really know what I am looking for. I wish I could get her something great, but after an iMac and a diamond necklace, not only am I broke, I am out of ideas. I think I am going to have to pay extra close attention to her over the next few weeks to figure out what she wants.

I am trying to get used to Adobe Premiere Pro so I can take some videos and screen shots. I have a book on it, but unfortunately I can’t seem to find anything in there to take screen shots so I might need to find another way to do it. I asked on a forum, so maybe I will get some answers. I have the camcorder set up to my left and I have been thinking about leaving it on and running a live chat, but I don’t know if it would take off. What do you guys think?

As you know, I am trying to market my website so that I can make it what I know it can be. The marketing comes in because with good marketing then I can take a day off work and work on it because I know the revenue from the site will make it worthwhile. I have been using Myspace as a marketing tool for about two months and I think it is really working for me, but I am also trying to use any marketing scheme that would work for me. I found a website called Lead Generation that provides some marketing tips that I might be able to use for my website. I will keep you informed if I can use anything.

Depression and low self esteem are a big problem in this country. Everyday there are more and more drugs that get approved to treat these things and the more drugs that come into the market, the more the market seems to grow and more people have these problems. There are two types of depression, situational and chemical imbalance.

With situational the depression kicks in during an event, such as a death in the family or some other traumatic event. A chemical imbalance is different than situational, because it is the neurons in your brain that are messed up and not working properly.

The drugs that can be prescribed to you can be very expensive and have a lot of side effects. Sometimes it is better to stay sad than to actually take one of these pills that are supposed to help your depression, after all how is suicidal thoughts a side effect of an anti-depressant? Isn’t that what the drug is supposed to prevent?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just flick a switch and happiness would appear in your feelings? What if it was that simple? What if all you had to do to beat your depression is to have a positive outlook on life? Would you do it? Could you do it? Would something like this ever exist? The answer is The Sedona Method.

Lester Levenson, an engineer/physicist/businessman almost died due to a serious heart attack. Lester believes his health got better after the cardiac incident due to his new positive outlook and emotions. I guess he really followed the whole “I think therefore I am” kind of philosophy huh?

I don’t know if this works or not, I am not depressed to tell you. I think it is pretty much like anything else in life though, if you want it to work for you then it will. Believe and have faith in the process then you will be happy with the results. If anyone knows for sure if this works, or has tried it then let me know, I would love to hear from you guys on this.

So as I was trying to film something for the website today, I noticed how hard it would be to do, so I went out and bought a tripod. It was only like 18 dollars so it wasn’t that big of an expense, and it will hopefully get me more money than I put out. We will see though. I won’t be doing anything with it tonight, maybe tomorrow after I do laundry and shower, then I might post a video blog, we’ll see.

I am constantly trying to find new ways to improve Lep’s Lair. The problem is that I have to find the time to do anything with the site, time that I could spend working. I have tried to make a decent profit from just cost per click advertising and cost per impression advertising, but neither seem to be making me much money. I wish it was different, and maybe if I can get some of the new stuff up and running then it will be, but right now I am breaking even and bearly turning a profit, which is all right considering that I never set out to make money, I am just recently trying to make this into something profitable.

I have recently heard about Net Audio Ads. What it does is gives you a five second audio ad on your website. They have a huge list of advertisers and they have been around for over two years so they know what they are doing. The five second ads could be anything from a Taco Bell ad to a Harley Davidson ad. I might try this for a few days just to see if I can make any money off of it, but I know from personal experience how annoying some of the audio ads can be, so we will see what happens.

If you don’t have something nice to say, talk about the weather. Well maybe that is just what I am going to do in this entry. Truth be told the weather is ever changing and can be down right scarey at times. Someone suggested that I put up a weather forecast on my site. At first he was joking and I knew that, but I responded anyway asking how he proposed I did that. He emailed me back saying that he was joking at first but then after looing at my site thought that it was a good idea.

I would put up a weather forecast, but I am somewhat limited as to what I can do because my host blocks out accepting pages from other domains, so I would need to figure out how to do that without opening up another domain. Of course if I borrowed some of Krissy’s space then I wouldn’t have this problem. I need to see what I can do and how I can do it, but I may make this my next big thing for Lep’s Lair. What do you think?

Do you remember the Chris Crocker video from last year? How about Obama girl? These videos would never fly on television, and without places that allow you to upload videos, they would probably never be made. Whether or not that is a good thing is a matter of opinion, but it is now easier than ever for someone to become famous, even if it is for a few weeks or months.

Think about it, any video uploaded has the potential to be something huge, especially with that many people having the potential to see it. Your video might even become a part of a television show, in the background, or even the main focus of a television show at some point. If you upload a video today to a place like YawpBox, then there is a potential that over a million people will view it. If a million people view it and 30 thousand like it then they will probably commit it to memory. If you put up more videos then those 30 thousand people will come back and tell more people. You could be famous, if even for a day or a month, but the user generated content is what the forwards of email were three years ago. They are addicting and people can’t seem to get enough of them.