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.

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.