2009

I really want to go to Comic Con one year. I just finished watching the Lost panel, and I’ve been reading up on the updates and it sounds really cool. Even if I never get to E3, I’d eventually like to one day go to Comic Con. All week I’ve been watching the videos and reading the stories and I think during the NY Comic Con I might actually try getting into the city to go. I know some people who I might meet up with there, so even if I go alone, I could still hang out with people once there.

Iron Man 2 sounds like it is going to be awesome, I was hoping to hear more about the Avengers, or even a Hulk sequel, but I guess we need to have Iron Man 2 come out before any of that since it is all in the same universe now. The Avengers actually looks like it is going to be good, though I am not sure how Iron Man 2 is going to play into it since The Incredible Hulk made it sound like the team was almost all set to go.

The new footage from Left 4 Dead 2 is making me think I will be going out on launch day to pick it up. If that is the case, I will probably pre-order from FYE since it is right up the road. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t show any footage from the sequel to Marvel Ultimate Alliance, but oh well.

July 21st (tomorrow) is Krissy’s and my anniversary. I can’t believe we’ve been together three years. We’ve had our ups and downs like any couple, but we’ve always been able to pull through stronger than before.

I think we might be going to Bertucci’s for dinner tomorrow, which I am all for, since I can get chicken parmagiana and unlimited bread. Believe me they have excellent bread. Kris also took the day off, which she needs, the poor thing works for a shit company and doesn’t get paid nearly enough. We also have some giftcards for movies, so maybe we will hit one up, though I don’t know if there’s anything she wants to see. Anything out now, I could honestly wait until it comes to DVD.

The dog woke me up at 7:30 this morning, for no reason other because she wanted to hop around in bed until I would pay attention to her. She’s such an attention whore at times, but she’s cute and she knows she’s cute, so that’s why she gets away with it.

I think I have finally decided on a new layout for my overall site, I just need to design it and see how it looks in all browsers and on all pages. I have some pages on here that it may look awful with, simply because of the how people’s browsers and screen widths are.

The new sections aren’t coming along as quick as I would like, mainly because I need to work to make money, but the majority of my time right now is being put into other projects that may make me money in the future, and finding clients right now to make money in the present. I have one who wants some big things, but I think I may have undercharged him with everything he wants. If anyone needs a PHP programmer, I am available.

I sent out the first newsletter tonight. It wasn’t much, just something asking for some feedback. What I am hoping to do is to have something new once a week, and add a lot more interaction on the site so that people will want to use it. My first goal is the links page, I was thinking about doing a link list using a custom script like phplist, but I think I will keep it more personal than that, maybe I will add a list feature later and use the links for my Links page the ones I personally love.

My host received some spam complains since I sent out the newsletter. If you were a member of the forum, it said you would be receiving a newsletter, and you did periodically. As for commenters and fanlistings, I can see how some of that may seem unsolicited. Either way, I took off the newsletter signup from the comments, now you need to do it through the sidebar.

I am working on a couple of things for Lep’s Lair. First and probably what will be available first is my brand new newsletter. I figure that once a month I will do a digest of the month’s posts, along with other news. Right now I am working on getting all the emails from everyone who was a part of the forums, left a comment, or are part of one of my fanlistings, if all goes well, they will be the first to opt in and then I will give new commenters the option to opt in, and have a submission form on the side.

The other things I am working on is to use my blog and split up the categories, but instead of the traditional category split up, I am thinking about making them sections. I am not really sure what the outcome will be, but I think if I can do it then it will be pretty interesting to see what comes of it.

Happy Independence Day everyone. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday, I know that we are doing a bbq here, so I won’t be around much tomorrow.

In similar news know the North Korea just fired missiles in defiance of the US, but who are we to tell them what they can and cannot do? Just once can we let the United Nations handle things and not get personally involved? After all we already have 2 other wars going on, let the UN do something for once, since it seems all they do it look at the US for troop support. Let another country lose soldiers, we’ve already lost enough and unless North Korea is an actual threat to the US, kind of like Al Quaeda is right now, I say we make the UN do something.

Happy Independence Day.

I am shamelessly addicted to infomercials, I want everything from the New Wave Oven to the Shamwows. Usually if I do pick something up I do it from an As Seen on TV cart in the mall, or from Walgreens. My favorite television pitchman was Billy Mays, he was always so excited about everything he sold, it made me want it that much more.

With all the deaths in recent weeks, this one probably hurts the most, seeing as how I hated Michael Jackson’s music, wasn’t a fan of Charlie’s Angels, and never won a million dollars, but Billy Mays I saw everyday on my television, and he made me want so many different products. Rest in Peace Billy, hope you get a great deal, because you gave others so many others a good deal.

Michael Jackson died this week. Now personally I didn’t really like his music, and I think the best thing he ever did was the Thriller music video, but that isn’t important. What is important is the way I found out Michael Jackson died. I knew he went into the hospital from CNN, but when I was on Twitter I kept seeing RIP MJ trends, so I looked into it and TMZ was reporting that he had died. CNN wasn’t even reporting it. It’s amazing that blogs and social media are traveling faster than the news can.

Will we ever get to the point where the news will be useless all together? I believe so. In Iran journalists are banned from recording the abuse going on, meanwhile people with cellphone cameras are recording the things going on. If it weren’t for these ordinary citizens then the world would have no idea. Social media is still a relatively new concept that only emerged in the last few years, but with sites like Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, and so many others out there, I think that the future of the media is the people. Cellphones are getting higher resolution everyday, and I think the higher resolution they get, it will only lead to the more people who will use it to show the world around them.

I am trying to install FFMPEG and a whole bunch of other stuff on my server, but so far it isn’t working. Hopefully I get it figured out soon. As of right now I am removing everything I just did and I’m going to try another tutorial either tonight or tomorrow. I need a good three hours to try and do this it seems, so I will probably try again tomorrow.

I decided to suspend my acceptance to NYIT and go to Nassau Community College instead. I can save money this way, and going to a major university after being out of school for three years is crazy. I signed up last week and I will be going in the Spring of 2010, so between now and then I just have work to worry about.

Other than that nothing has been up, gotten a few clients here and there, I’ve been managing to pay the bills and then some. Hopefully I will be able to get a big client soon.

During the summer months there is nothing on television and it is really too hot to do anything, plus, I need to wait for Krissy to come home from work before we really can do anything. That is why I usually look forward to E3 and Comic Con San Diego. Video games may be time wasters as a lot of people call it, but it is really the only thing that I can do to relax, that and comic books, so it is no wonder why I wait for the two biggest things in my life to come to fruition in the coming months.

E3 just ended and Comic Con is still a few weeks away. Now I will admit that I have never been to either one of these, but I am hoping one day I will get to go, either because of my job, or otherwise. Of course Comic Con isn’t closed to the public, I just need to be in California, but that can’t be possible right now, so I simply wait until the day I can be in California for either E3 or Comic Con. It would be amazing to be there for both in one year though.