Listen to me complain

Anyone reading X-Con will notice that chapter 4, though massively long (stupidly long, methinks), was split only into 4 parts – though these were longer than normal. That’s to conserve bandwidth and so I don’t have to spend forever doing formatting for what’s not actually my own content. When I hunt for something else to put on the site that’s not my own content, basic HTML formatting ability may well be necessary before I accept it. Perhaps cruel, but adding tags won’t take long, and I’ll still take the arduous task of formatting the pages, breaking chapters into pieces and sorting out all the links to different parts.

Next week I’ll post a list of final features for the September update – which should hopefully be going live in about 2 weeks. Hopefully. As usual, don’t hold me to anything.

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Sadly, I am still job-hunting after 3 full weeks of it. I’ve only heard back from 2 places – one to let me know the position was filled (ignoring the fact that I applied to two jobs within their company) and the other to arrange a job interview, only to shoot me down after the interview because I’m not pushy enough for a sales position. Well then! I guess I may be a bastard online but I’m still too nice in real life.

I finally surpassed 4000 gamerpoints on Xbox Live, so I’m pretty happy about that. I’m slowly whittling away at the slew of Halo 3 achievements (perhaps the only game, other than Guitar Hero 2, that has successfully pleased me enough to continue to pick it up after almost a year of owning it). Apart from some campaign scoring achievements, there are now exclusively online ones left. Which is a bit shit, really, but I’ll do what I can to get the fuckers.

On Monday I’ll post this month’s stats. They’re looking good. Exceptionally good. Like, so good I now consider the site a moderate success and have added information on it to my CV. Without including the web address, obviously – no one is going to want to employ me, seeing the crap that comes out of my head.

A slightly epic fuck-up

So yesterday Stuart told me that he was considering selling X-Con, on release, for £6.99. The idea sounded cool, but I didn’t think it was physically possible to sell such a large hardback book (it’s typical hardback size, 8.25×10.75″) for so little on Lulu. So I went to have a look at the base price.

Turns out the basic price is over £12. Stuart had not checked this before announcing pricing details. Thus, the prices I had announced on his behalf are no longer valid, and instead the novel will be available for £12.99 on release. I think he’s also considering a paperback release, to reduce costs. If you want the novel, but are now put off by the increased price, time to start praying.

Due to its delay, however, I am told five chapters will now be released on the site, so instead of the three planned not long back, you will be blessed (or perhaps cursed) with two extra chapters.

I’ve updated the blog, at last, to contain categories for posts, so browsing is made easier. Most posts have a tonne of categories, so if you’re going category surfing, be prepared to find the same thing on multiple occasions. In adding categories, I’ve also removed a few tags which either saw limited use or were too specific and could be replaced by a better tag.

In the meantime, Tsubasa Chronicle volume 4 arrived yesterday and took slightly under an hour to read. Now I want volume 5, as the bastard ends on a cliffhanger. As mentioned yesterday, check out my Amazon wishlist to snag me a copy. If you do, I will forever be your friend.

Site stuff, then real life stuff

First and foremost, I forgot to talk about this previously when I discussed upcoming site updates; when I update the site in CSS in December – assuming I do, as I hope to be able to – I will be implementing skins next year, which will be very nice and lovely if you don’t like the current design but would like me to do a tonne of work on alternate designs just to make you feel happy and such.

The September update will also see some ad pages thrown into the mix. There won’t be too many, but I’ll be adding them in various hotspots just between pages, to help get some attention and cover hosting fees – though my AdSense stuff has served over 13,000 page views, the click-through rate is 0.11%; thus I have currently accrued less than $4. This does not cover the $10ish (£4.99) monthly hosting fee. Thankfully, I will bless you with text very big and obvious that will allow you to skip ads to head to the content you’re wanting.

September will also see a brand new, more serious comic series, and will likely separate most of the Halo-themed comics from the Boring Comics series. No update schedule yet, but I’m working on the story and I think two updates per week will be likely. It will reduce Boring Comics to a once-per-week update cycle, though I may add an extra day for the comic so production doesn’t slow down horribly on the middle child.

Also; as I said, July got over 4,800 hits in total. August, in its first 20 days, has matched this and so I expect to surpass 6,000 hits this month.

In reference to yesterday’s post; I was told by the owner of HBO, the site featured in Boring Comics #13, that he found it funny, so though Monday’s offering did not please, Wednesday’s offering got a laugh from the man, so at that, I am pleased with myself. The Wednesday comic, perhaps in light of a positive remark from HBO’s Louis Wu, is now this month’s most viewed in a single day, too, so I now know I can either write crap or write gold to draw in views, though nothing in between. Oddly, this is not helpful.

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Just lately I wish I hadn’t adopted the Xbox 360 when I did.

Obviously, I love the console and though it has seen a red ring of death and had to be replaced by the wonderfully quick Microsoft staff, it’s one of my favourites things. It’s given me hours of fun over my host of games, provided me a fantastic Xbox Live experience far surpassing that of the original Xbox and a tonne of great features.

Still, when I bought it, it was £279.99 – though I got it in a £299.99 deal with two games and an extra controller (which broke earlier this year, incidentally) – and was, as I bought it at the end of 2006, the 20GB model lacking a HDMI port.

Nowadays, you can snag an Elite – a better looking black version of the 360 for less than this, and it not only has an HDMI port, but a hard drive six times bigger than my own. Not only that, but you can get the model I own, albeit with the added HDMI port, and now a 60GB hard drive for £179.99. This is £100 less than what I paid, and it is a substantially better deal, both due to decreased cost and spectacular improvements.

This, of course, does not affect you, as you don’t care that I’m jealous of all the people buying 360s right now and heading into the future. I just wanted to complain.

I downloaded the ten-day trial of World of Warcraft after almost two years of delaying it. I, unfortunately, like it, though I’m hoping I get bored by the end of the trial, as I’d rather not spend £8.99 a month on a game that I may become hopelessly addicted to as so many others have. I’ll post my server at some point, and if you don’t mind hanging with a low-level character (currently I’m level 7) in Goldshire or areas around there, post a comment and I’ll hook you up with my details.

My Sea Monkeys tank arrived yesterday, and in roughly eight hours I’ll be putting the eggs in. So that’s cool. Tsubasa Chronicle volume 4 didn’t arrive, though, so I’m hoping the bastard shows up today. If you would like to please me, feel free to check out my Amazon wishlist, where you could, if you are so kind, snag me a copy of volume 5 of Tsubasa Chronicle, thus stopping me from having to wait a month or so before I buy it. You can also buy me a copy of the first volume of Great Teacher Onizuka, which I’m told is funny, or perhaps even a copy of Tomb Raider: Anniversary on the 360 for me to play after I’ve puzzled my way through Tomb Raider: Legend.

Alternatively, if you don’t like buying things for other people but you do like buying things for yourself, look no further than the Boring Internet store, where you can currently score yourself a pillow depicting the Queen’s true identity, or a wonderful set of coasters topped with the happiest seagull in the world.

This post has a fucking tonne of tags.

Irony!

Despite the somewhat negative comment about the Monday edition of Boring Comics, there was ironically almost 900 hits that day, which makes the comic the most viewed in a single day this month. It’s an odd relationship, but apparently if I write comics people think are crap, I’ll get shitloads of viewers. And also, apparently, fucking loads of spam comments posted to this blog by trawler bots.

I will, however, side with Louis Wu in that the joke is poor even at a stretch, and was merely meant to make light of Dave’s inherent crapness. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very obvious and so I promise to try to make punchlines easier to understand for the uninitiated from now on.

Today’s comic, in response to the comments, is my way of laughing things off, and is in fact one of my favourite Dave and Frank jokes thus far, excluding perhaps #9 – The Facilities, which is disgusting really, but oh well.

Not much stuff to talk about, to be honest! I’m working on yet another new novel, I’m awaiting Tsubasa Chronicle volume 4 and a new Sea Monkey playset (this is perhaps the 7th or 8th in my life), which I hope will come tomorrow. My exercise bike has broken, probably due to overuse, as it has seen an hour and a half of use a day, or more, since I got it, so that needs to be sent back to Argos. I’m applying to jobs whenever I can, so if you’ve got a job available that pays £20k a year or more, needs fuck all in the way of qualifications aside from average A level results, you don’t mind having a long-haired guy do the job without tying his hair back and the job involves talking about how much I hate various things (ie. Laurell K. Hamilton) or taking the piss out of people and/or companies, then drop me a comment.

Oh yes, and I nearly forgot: Stuart is too shit to get things done by the deadlines he sets, so X-Con will not be released until September 3rd. I’m also told that the chapters I have posted are outdated due to edits, so if you buy the book, re-read chapters 1 – 4, if you read them on the site, for whatever changes have been made. I don’t expect they’re anything particularly drastic, other than word and grammar changes, but let’s be on the safe side, shall we?

Novels

As I mentioned the other day, now we’ve got a release date and price for X-Con’s release, I ought to think about the print-on-demand version of Twist. Here’s some info!

The book will likely be around 350 pages. Don’t hold me to that, because the final final draft isn’t completely finished – hence why the PoD book isn’t available yet. It’ll come to you in that wonderful format of trade paperback and, as such, will cost roughly £7.99. Again, don’t hold me to that, but that’s a maximum; if I can, I may shrink the font size down to fit more on each page and bring the price down as much as possible.

Why no hardback release? Well, I am vaguely considering it, or making a hardback version and buying a couple myself to give away in competitions; as such, they’ll be limited edition. We’ll see when release rolls around.

Hopefully the PoD version will be here in late September.

At some point, when I finally complete the final season of Pixelated Anne (more news on that comic’s demise at some point), I’m hoping to release a PoD comic, in full-colour, with lots of commentary and stuff, plus a slew of extras. Expect that sometime in 2009. Maybe.

Real life things

Here is the promised update about things in real life you don’t care about much.

Last Tuesday I ordered Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the 360. It took a week, but this Tuesday it arrived. I played two songs of Easy mode but because I’ve been playing GH2 for a year, it was too boring and I amped it up to Medium – and that was still too boring for the most part. I completed it in about 6 hours or so, unlocking a few achievements, and I’m now progressing through Hard and Expert mode simultaneously and working on getting 5 stars on the last 3 or 4 songs in the Medium tour.

Yesterday I picked up a copy of Tomb Raider: Legends, also for the 360. Only £7.99, too. I’ve played about 45 minutes so far, and I do quite like the game – I haven’t played a Tomb Raider game since the very first one on the original Playstation.

That said, I’ve been getting stuck on the puzzles. I also got scared to death when I rounded a corner and a jaguar bounded out of a temple thing at me. I hate this, and when it happened I thought, “Shit, this isn’t meant to be a scary game!” Anyone who saw my reading list on the old version of the site will know that I read a tonne of horror books; that said, though, I hate being scared by something visually, whether it’s something horrifyingly gruesome or something that jumps out and surprises you – the first jaguar in Bolivia on Tomb Raider: Legend being the latter case.

Today I’m off to get my exam results. I’ll add them to the bottom of this post when I get home and then update the site to show this blogpost is live in its final(ish, in case I notice spelling errors later) format.

Oh, and I’m getting a kitten soon.

Update: Exam results:

Computing: C

Physics: C

Chemistry: D

Drama: D

Anyone wishing to congratulate me; my Amazon wishlist can be found here.

Update 2: Stuart has been kind enough to allow a 4th chapter of X-Con to be released on the site; thus, this has become a kind of X-Con Month, every available Wednesday taken up with a chapter of X-Con. He’s also told me the release date of the novel is August 27th. It will be available in hardback, will be 287 pages long and for the first two weeks after release, it will be available for £9.99. After that, it’ll cost you £11.99.

Upcoming site updates, stats

In case the title did not deter you, this blogpost concerns site updates; if you are hoping for news on the things I have acquired as of late in real life, check back another day.

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Starting September this year, in addition to the daily updates I do for the site, I will also be doing seasonal updates to overhaul various things and keep the site clean. The first of these, the September 2008 update – the Fall update, we shall refer to it – will be released around the first or second week of September.

So what will this update include? Well, not a great deal as there’s not millions and millions of things on the site that need addressing yet. However, here are the couple of things you can expect:

The Pixelated Anne pages will all be updated; these have incorrect headers (from the original code when I built the website, when I didn’t bother with a proper site header but instead a teaser-style shitfest) and two more ads per page than other pages. Anyone that saw the thesecretsauce page that came online the weekend before the site went live will know that originally there were sevral extra ads on each page, though these were removed due to horrible load times. However, as the Pixelated Anne pages were uploaded in advance the week before the new site went live, they were not updated.

The Chat function is something I’ve hated since I released the new site update, but because I promised it, I kept it in. I don’t like the non-integratedness of it, though, so I am hoping to replace this with a Flash-based chat integrated into the site design. I’m hoping for one, also, that you won’t have to sign up on, and can instead just jump in.

The Reviews section will be ‘quietly’ discontinued in September to be replaced with another version of it at some point. The reviews present were written from a marketplace review site, not for this, so they come off stilted compared to the majority of the content on the site. At some point I will have further news on the updated version of the Reviews section, but it won’t be back until December at the earliest.

The Fiction: Silly Poems section will start a release cycle of Not-So-Nice Nursery Rhymes every Saturday, in addition to the existing update. This is both because it’s something I find quite interesting (and sadistic) and because at the moment I see weekends as weaker updates; the Saturday content has existed for months and is just released for the small number of readers the novel has, and the Sunday content is not my own, merely scraped up from around the net.

As for future updates; I’m hoping that, by December 2008, I can release a rewritten version of the site in CSS to reduce load-times and begin possibly laying down code for an ARG (alternate reality game) called Who Killed Tobias Stanhope? which, ideally, will crop up by this time next year.

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The site has been open since April, and so I figured I’d post some of the stats for the first four months of activity. These below are unique visits per month, then an average per day in brackets.

April 2008: 1831 (61.03)

May 2008: 695 (22.42)

June 2008: 1321 (44.03)

July 2008: 4803 (154.94)

From now on, I will release monthly hit stats in this blog.

Morris the Misfit Monster

Apparently I have a real inability to live without writing some kind of story. And so, despite the fact I am already working on a book called The Colony, and looking to turn the A-Z of Why the Internet is Shit into a full book, I’ve started up on yet another one. This one is – yup, you guessed it – titled Morris the Misfit Monster.

Here’s a brief blurb right now, though it’s early days (and by that I mean, the first day) and so the project could easily be dropped like so many others, or could change drastically before completion and seeing the light of day.

“Morris is a monster. Separated by his parents in the Great Monster Migration one October, the hairy thing is picked up by a couple both succumbing to blindness. Fearing that this extraordinarily hairy ‘baby’ will be left for dead, the two take the monster in and name it Morris.

Everything seems fine for a while, but soon Morris starts school and discovers that he’s not exactly like the other children. Degraded but not defeated, Morris decides he’s going to fit in, no matter what it takes. And Morris is about to discover just what lengths he’s going to have to go to in order to fit in.”

As with the majority of my projects these days, I’m looking to keeping it reasonably short – 60k or below, given the enormous 126k that the first draft of Twist weighed in at. Unlike my other usual projects, though, this is a black comedy aimed more at teenage audiences that adults but should hopefully entertain anyone who dares to read it.

Assuming it’s finished, redrafted and refined and then not accepted by an agent or publisher if I send it off to various people in hopes of it getting actually published, chapters will crop up on the website eventually.

Sibling Rivalry

“Sibling Rivalry”, the latest horrible poem to grace the pages of the website, is one that never ceases to make me giggle due simply to the oddness of it. The poem itself, along with previously released “Harry the Fish” and a slew of others that will eventually crop up on the site, was written on my mum’s typewriter at a certain boot sale that gets a mention in an article.

The X-Con cover art is finally complete, and so for the next few weeks, the first few chapters of X-Con will be released on the site, then a link to buy the book from Lulu will be added. I would joke that the cover art is better than the book, since I made it, but he would get annoyed at me and take it seriously.

For anyone interested, though X-Con is only having a few sample chapters released, the entirety of Twist will be released on the site over the next 6 months or so (coming to a conclusion roughly in February next year), as well as being released via Lulu in a print-on-demand paperback format. I’m not in charge of what gets released of X-Con, only how and when, though eventually I hope to crush Stuart’s fallible spirit and get him to allow me to release more chapters for you.

The store will have a new addition this week or next, with any luck, though I’m screwed on what I want to do. I’ve got the art, but the question is whether I want to make a 2009 calendar print with it, a mini poster or a framed print. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I’m debating getting Guitar Hero 3, though I’ve just been told it’s the worst in the franchise apart from the recently released Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Help on this matter would also be appreciated, because I cannot choose something to fucking save my life. If I was given the death sentence and asked to choose the method of death, it would be hours before I finally settled on something.

If anyone knows of any online sources of information about mental illness and its causes, or any books I can read, let me know. In order to release a long-winded article on the site, I need to prove my thoughts correct on something.

The store is live

This post comes pretty damn late in the day, so it’ll be counted towards Sunday’s update rather than an extra piece to Saturday’s latest chapter of Twist.

The store is now live and can be found by either clicking here or going to the following URL: http://www.cafepress.com/BoringInternet

The oldest readers will remember that this store was previously linked on the first website design. When the second design came, however, I did not include a link, planning on adding more products and putting the link back up at some point. Now, a couple of weeks into design number three, the store is officially back.

At the moment, there are only two products. A third will be added shortly when I rework the ‘BLAME OTHERS’ poster to match the site’s original placeholder graphic before it went live (sadly, this no longer exists on the server, otherwise I would point you toward it). For now, though, you can snag yourself a comfortable throw pillow depicting the Queen’s true, secret identity (available here: http://www.cafepress.com/boringinternet.290565578 ) or a coaster depicting the world’s happiest seagull (available here: http://www.cafepress.com/boringinternet.290567811 ).

Items in the store, though priced in dollars, can be purchased by anyone in the world, albeit with increased postage costs. Sadly, because I don’t own the host site, the only say I get is what the pricing is fixed at for each product. Therefore, if you’re ordering from elsewhere in the world, in order to get a better deal I would honestly wait until the store fills up a bit more and there are a few things you want before ordering.

I have looked into a UK version of the store, but aside from differences in products, which would become confusing and perhaps slightly odd, the prices are too high in an English store, and any postage saved would make up the product cost – looking into a UK site version of the throw pillow, I found the basic price was £14.75 – whereas, given the current exchange rate, you can snag the one on the CafePress store for £8.86, and that’s including the 75p or so I get from each sale. The UK pillow, while being almost £6 more, is also several inches smaller than the US one.

So, for now, the US-based store is the only one there will be. Incidentally, if you have any art/product requests that you’re actually interested in buying, post them in the comments here and I’ll see what I can do for you.

For the record, when the print-on-demand versions of X-Con and Twist arrive on the scene, as Lulu hosts a multitude of websites in many different countries, there will be no worries about increased shipping costs due to international shipping rates being too damn high.