2011

I've talked about the Westboro Baptist Church in the past on this site and I didn't think I would ever want to talk about them again, but after yesterday I want to. For those of you who don't know, the WBC runs the site godhatesfags and they are the church that are constantly protesting soldier's funerals, other churches, the Laramie Project, they even tried to protest the funeral for the girl that was shot in Arizona a few months back.  The church is run by Fred Phelps and the congregation is basically just members of his family. The members who leave his church say that Fred is a lunatic and even his kids who leave have said that he used to beat them growing up and the church is a way for him to get his anger out. To me, it sounds like this guy is gay and was brought up believing that homosexuality is wrong so he started doing this to cover up his feelings.

The church has stated that Elizabeth Taylor taught women it is okay to be whores and will therefor be protesting her funeral. These people are the kind that make me ashamed to be on the same planet as them. Now if you know me, you know that I have what Kris calls "diarreah of the mouth" and I have been expressing myself more and more without a filter online lately. Well yesterday and the day before I decided I would fuck with two of their members, Megan Phelps-Roper and Sara Phelps.

I knew that these people were crazy before, but after talking to them I can confirm that they should be locked away with a straight jacket on for the rest of their lives. They consider themselves Christian, but believe that their god is a vengeful one and only those who will smite the earth because we all not only live in sin, but condone it. They called funerals for fallen soldiers pep rallies and that a mother losing a child is only due to her living in sin and that she should be choosing to lose all sin from her life rather than mourning her son.

The craziest thing is that they praised Saddam before Operation Iraqi Freedom, they even went there to praise him for the way he ran the country and for his views on the Muslim teachings. They aren't even just crazy as a whole, Megan Phelps confirmed that one of the reasons that she didn't go to law school was because the end of the world is coming.

I told Sara I didn't fear hell because I am planning a party when I get there, after all if you are going to be in a bad situation then you may as well try and have a good time right? She said I would be in so much pain I wouldn't have a good time, still even if I was there suffering pain for eternity it would be so much better than being in heaven with the Phelps freaks.

The tsunami in Japan is very sad and very tragic, but even though it is so tragic, is it not okay to laugh to ease the pain?

Gilbert Gottfried was fired from being the Afflac duck voice for making jokes on Twitter regarding the events in Japan. His jokes, "I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, 'They'll be another one floating by any minute now'" and "I fucked a girl in japan. She screamed 'I feel the earth move and I'm getting wet.'", but should he be fired over that? Yes it is a tragic time in Japan, but are we not allowed to laugh? Comedians aren't known for being appropriate, in fact, that is one of the reasons we love them and watch them. I've laughed at September 11th jokes, why shouldn't we be able to laugh?

The night of the tsunami trending topics on Twitter were Pearl Harbor and Godzilla. A writer for the Cleveland show tweeted "The tsunami is payback for Pearl Harbor", I'll be honest, I knew it was wrong, but I still laughed a bit. It isn't because I have no respect for the country or what they are going through, but because it was so messed up. Godzilla was trending because they were saying the tsunami was really just him waking up, not as funny, but still amusing.

Maybe some would call me an asshole, maybe some would say I have no respect because I can laugh through this, and because I can laugh at September 11th. I'm not laughing at them, I am laughing at the jokes. As inappropriate as they are, they are funny. Maybe the world needs more laughter right now, so let go of the political correctness, put down your differences, get together with a neighbor and just laugh. What else can we do, just wallow? They say laughing is the best medicine and I agree with them.

I am writing this on my phone as I am waiting for Kris's uncle to finish eating. I worked over 40 hours this week and I will be working more when we get back from dinner tonight, I need to finish up one client's ASP work and then connect CCBill for another client.

I have never really worked with ASP in the past, I did have one client previously that mistook ASP for PHP, but I managed to finish that without too much trouble. This ASP site isn't going that bad either. I don't necessarily hate ASP, but it has been so long since I have done Visual BASIC that I find myself reading my own tutorials trying to figure out what to do. There was a time in high school when I was doing ASP, but that was when I had lepslair and was hosted on a package without any server side coding, so all my code was only running on my computer, not my site. Since then though obviously things have changed, I just wish I could only work in PHP. Maybe I could find an ASP person I could outsource to. That would be nice.

I've noticed that over the course of the last few years I stopped being active on some of the forums I used to be active on, so I signed up to Social Engine Forum and started helping out over there the last few days. Social Engine is a really great piece of software and I would have used it here, but I didn't want to be limited when integrating other stuff.  I am thinking I will start being more active on Social Engine Base again, afterall that is where one of my more recent clients found me, if nothing else it does get my name out there for support and anything that can promote you is very good, right? I think I will go troll those forums and help out if I can after this since I still have a while before I can leave. Does anyone else have forums that they are active in? I am looking to be more active.

I've been trying to work a minimum of 40 hours a week since that is the standard work week. So far I am up to 30.5 hours this week. With less than 10 hours to go to meet 40 hours I plan on having some easy days until Friday. I normally don't take weekends off, so having 7 days to do 40 hours and then some easy days is better for me, otherwise having nothing to do makes me go crazy. I don't know why I can't relax, even last night I woke up at like 4Am and couldn't fall back asleep until after 5, I felt so unproductive.

I always have to be doing something, in the midst of writing this post I fixed a lot issue for a client, checked up on some spoilers, and saw the new Thor pictures. I don't know if this is just that my brain can't function properly unless it's doing 15 things at once, or what, but it is annoying. Does anyone else have this problem? I've been thinking for a while that maybe they were right back then and I do have attention deficit disorder, but I can't exactly afford to be put on medication right now when doctor's visits cost so much. Oh well I guess I will make due, maybe I can get something online that will be cheaper.

I debuted a new section this week. Website Listings are link listings for members. It's 100% free, all that is required is a reciprocating link. I believe this will be the way the social network parts will be headed, toward websites and blogs. While sites like Myspace and Facebook don't want you using theirs for promotional purposes, I am encouraging it and will be giving you the tools to do it. I have a huge project underway that will give it a huge push, something that I don't believe is around anymore, but I want to bring back. Hopefully it works.

I've been doing a good job juggling work and personal stuff. I have been able to work almost 8 hours a day and still work on LepsLair, play some video games, and just do stuff I enjoy without having to constantly working. I am going to be working this weekend, but the payoff will be good, so I don't mind, I got a new client off Freelancer when things were a bit slow this week, but the work for them is almost done. Once it is done I will hopefully be able to start on that new project.

I've gotten behind on posting again, but to be honest that's because nothing has really been going on. Kris and I went down to NJ on Saturday and Sunday we went to her grandmother's for her mom's birthday. Other than that we've both been working hard.

I need to pay my taxes soon, I am waiting (and hoping) that most of the people that owe me money pay me soon so I am all caught up. I am hoping to pay the taxes before the first car payment is due. I don't know if it is going to hurt us that much, but anything extra going out is never good when you are waiting to be paid.

When we were down in NJ, my dad gave us his old Nikon FE2. I have always loved Nikon's and while this isn't exactly the digital beast that I'd love, I think it can be a great start to learning all about manually photography. Plus it gives me a chance to learn to develop film, something that I have always wanted to learn to do, hope this gives me the inspiration to take more pictures and finally learn to develop film.

So we had a nice little vacation over Valentine's weekend. On the way home we stopped by a few car dealerships and Kris found the car she wanted. She has been going back and forth between a Chevy Malibu and an Equinox for over a year. She finally setled on an Equinox after driving it, so we decided to see if we could afford it. It's been tight this week, but I have been working hard and hopefully soon it will pay off. It won't be tight after some payments come in, I may even still be able to pay off some of the revolving debt we have pretty fast, it's just a matter of having clients pay me. I worked over 50 hours last week and only one person has paid so far, most are backed up for a few weeks, and some only pay once a month, but hopefully things will be caught up soon.

I did relax today, I worked over 12 hours this weekend and today I played some COD: Zombies, and now I am trying to work on LepsLair, I do have some changes and some features I want to implement, I just need to figure out what is next and where I want it to go next. I have an idea, probably more based around some social features that I miss from the big sites. I also want to expand the article area with features, news, etc, I just need to get a clear definition of the titles.

This weekend is the weekend before Valentine's Day so Krissy and I are heading out east for a little vacation. This is our second trip this year that we are taking, which is good since we have been doing really well with money. I completed one of my major financial goals this week that I had been trying to accomplish for months now, so it is really great to be able to do that as well as take a little vacation.

We have nothing really planned, just getting a nice hotel suite for the weekend. The hotel is attached to this sports bar that we liked the last time we went, last year, so I think it is safe to say that we may have a higher alcohol bill than food bill when we eat there tomorrow night. Last time we went was before Christmas and there was a random Santa Clause wondering around, so hopefully something just as interesting happens this time.

That is it really, I haven't had much time to work on the site, been busy working. I have set up stuff for the future though, including a new adult subdomain and profile fields in the database. I am trying to set it up in a similar way to Facebook and Myspace, but different in its own way. In theory it will connect with some sections I already have up which will hopefully lead to more user content. At this point I am sure you are confused, but don't worry, I am too, so we will figure it out together and make it work right. The first step is to expand the profiles to allow things like an About Me, then add in the game trophys, then move on to more interactive things like comments, friends, user albums, public albums, etc. Hopefully some of this will be complete by the time I send out another newsletter. I've also been working to get this script up for the Funbox, but so far it's giving me a lot of trouble. I think it is a lot of fun though, hopefully I can figure out the issues soon.

I started writing an entry, but I think it'd be better as an article. I do want to write an entry, but all I am really thinking about is how hungry I am. I am on the train into the city so I think after an hour or so of work I am going to head downstairs for a slice or two.

Kris and I have plans tonight, I think it is either going to be dinner at Bertucci's or dinner at Friendly's. I don't care either way, just because I am eating pizza for lunch, doesn't mean I can't have a calzone for dinner, right?

I went into the city today during the eighth snowstorm of the season. The last time I went ino the city during a snowstorm my ipod broke and I have yet to get a new one. I may get one after we come back from our Valentine's Day getaway, depending on money and whatnot.

So far this year money has been really good, if it keeps continuing at this pace, we should be able to pay off our bed and get our credit cards down a lot within a few months.

As for the January goals, I did do a good job taking some time off, though it wasn't full weekends at a time and right now it doesn't look like taking full weekends off is going to be possible with the amount of stuff I need to accomplish, hopefully though that will change and I will be able to either hire someone or just complete jobs and schedule things on different days, I may do the latter in the coming days. As for getting stuff on the site, I have done a lot the last few weeks, a new fanlisting, lyrics, riddles, plus getting my own version of php compiled and working for future projects.

For February I want to focus on more features for members, little things though, like topic subscriptions, not having to type their name and info when commenting. The major feature I would like to have up is member profiles of some kind, even if it isn't the ideal one that I would like.

Okay, so I am officially all snowed out for this winter. This has to be about the third snowfall of the season and we are getting more this weekend. I have to tell you, frankly, I am sick of it. Basically because of the snow I can't go to work in the city and I love doing that, I can't really walk anywhere because the sidewalks aren't clear, and I am sick of shoveling the snow. I was out there today shoveling and I shoveled three times yesterday, the final time I finished at 1AM and the only reason I shoved was because if I didn't we'd be snowed in today. My wrist has been bothering me the last few days (a combination of Nintendo thumb, work, and slipping on ice) and shoveling this snow is definitely not helping. Hopefully tomorrow it will feel better.

When was the last time you had a good burger? I have one just about every week, see there are two places up here that serve a good burger, Barefoot Peddler in Green Vale and Taby's in Oyster Bay. For me a burger has to sit well with ketchup (I love ketchup on a burger), cheese, and most importantly the bun. Taby's and Barefoot Peddler are equal in different ways, but Barefoot Peddler has something that Taby's doesn't, alcohol. Alcohol makes a burger taste that much better, especially if you have a good appetizer before hand, like mozzarella sticks or buffalo wings. If you are ever in the area, you should definitely stop by, since they are delicious.

Where did this rant on good burgers come from? Well to be quite honest, from Regis. Watching How I Met Your Mother tonight on Lifetime, it was the episode where Marshal goes in search of the perfect burger and I've been craving one ever since. Now that I talked about buffalo wings I could go for those too, with a nice draft. Craving a burger, wings, and beer late at night is normal right?