2009

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.

It looks like one of the E3 predictions that I wrote about the other day is true. Above are pictures of the alleged new redesign of the PSP. I don’t have a PSP, but I have played it and I don’t really see a point of a redesign without a second thumb stick, but maybe that is just me.

Also below are pictures of what are allegedly the boxes for the new PSP and the redesign of the PS3. As of right now though, the PS3 redesign is still just a rumor, but with E3 being one day away, anything is possible.

I got an email today that totally threw me off guard. Apparently I was accepted to NYIT, but I wasn’t expecting to receive an email about it since every other time I was accepted to a school it came in the mail. I guess it is a technology school for a reason. Now I just need to figure out how to afford tuition and all the fees that come along with it.

You might expect more videos from here on out, I got my video camera working again. I went to the fireworks show over the weekend and I took my camcorder out of retirement only to find that it wasn’t working. I bought some head cleaner for it and it finally came today and it fixed the problems I was having.

So we finally got cable. They came today and hooked it up. We have an HD-DVR in the bedroom hooked up to my 32 inch high definition television. It’s pretty sweet.

Besides cable, nothing much is new. Been working for clients, finished up a bunch of stuff, and have finally gained some free time, but I have been playing video games with it rather than working on anything personal. I know I have to work on the design and some new pages for prices before all my clients disappear, but when you are working so much, any break away from the computer to do what you enjoy, is a much appreciated break.

We do have a new Guy of the Moment, and that might be the last one for a while. I have one contestant all set for Girl of the Moment, and I have been putting it on Twitter, so if I get enough interest, then that will start soon. I will also be slowly making more time for the site, if you follow me on Twitter, or have looked at my what I want to do, then you will have an idea of what might be coming at some point.