Many random notes and much pointless navel-gazing this morning. Best if you skip this. I should be out of this self-indulgent phase any minute now…
Yes, I have changed the site theme for Halloween. I don’t like it either. I don’t think this particular layout lends itself to Halloween colors. I thought of going white-on-black for Halloween, but there are all sorts of reasons why that would look just awful, unless I wanted to remake all of the graphics. Which I don’t.
My YouTube video Bowling+Rollercoaster=FUN! has had amazing success. Check it out:
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135,000 viewers is just crazy. That’s more than the total number of hits to this website in the last 5 months. I stand by my original assessment that YouTube can’t possibly make money like this. Although now the deal I offered Google might not be as tantalizing as before, for reasons I’ll get into in a minute. Last week – when the movie was new – I was (briefly) the #1 favorited videogame movie on YouTube. This sort of thing tends to feed on itself. I’m guessing that once you get onto page 1 of the favorites, it becomes easier to get more visitors and thus stay there.
Still, DM of the Rings is getting many, many links (nearly doubling the total number of links to my blog, ever) and the Bowlercoaster movie went wild – both of these things happened within a few days of each other.
This morning I looked and I’d blown through my allotted bandwidth for the month. This has never been a problem before. (Not even close.) Now I wonder: Is this allotment given by the calendar month which ends in a couple of days, or by billing month, which ends in a couple of weeks? If the latter, I could be way, way, way over by the end of the month. I have no idea what will happen. I can’t find anything on the HostingMatters pages about this. Do they shut me down? Put a lien on my house? Send a couple of goons to give me a beating? This should be interesting and quite painful finding out!
Hmmm. After searching through the help pages, looks like it will just be a few extra bucks. Assuming I don’t get FARKed or Digg’ed (dug?) or otherwise linked by some huge site, I should skate through just fine. Most of this is my own dumb fault. I’ve been generally sloppy about making sure I pick the best file format for a particular image, and I’ve left JPG quality on my images needlessly high. I add lots of graphics to posts that do not need them. I use ten screenshots when three would do. I bet with a little effort (which is still too much) I could make the archives much lighter.
I’ve gone back and added titles to the old DM of the Rings, and will be giving them titles from here on out. This is to make things easier on myself, which is one of my passions in life. The old numeral names were too hard to keep straight in my head, and as I consider new strips and shuffle through the archives I find myself getting confused. So, now we have titles.
This Game is Too Videogame-y

What's wrong with a game being "too videogameish"?
The Opportunity Crunch

No, brutal, soul-sucking, marriage-destroying crunch mode in game development isn't a privilege or an opportunity. It's idiocy.
The Truth About Piracy

What are publishers doing to fight piracy and why is it all wrong?
Lost Laughs in Leisure Suit Larry

Why was this classic adventure game so funny in the 80's, and why did it stop being funny?
Denuvo and the "Death" of Piracy

Denuvo videogame DRM didn't actually kill piracy, but it did stop it for several months. Here's what we learned from that.
Dont worry, I think there is plenty of room on the host machine ;)
Heh. Some folks have all the luck. Others make their luck. You appear to be in the latter category.
Although, I’m tempted to tell the Stainles Steel Brat to repeat her little trick with Zoo Tycoon and film that. Seems one time, she made a zoo of nothing but lions, tigers, and other predators. Then she sealed the zoo entrance and demolished the fences around the animal enclosures…
“Lunch time!”
So do those of us who were fans of your writing before DM of the Rings get some sort of special prize?
;)
I’m glad to hear your popularity is rising. It’s always good to see the right people getting rewarded in kind.
I want a special prize. I’ve been a fan since back when it was about me and my adventures in D&D. Oh yeah and those other guys too.
Just for reference: Bogan played Enoch in our campaign.
It’s on my to-do list. Honestly.
If we are getting prizes for being an original fan, get in line, Bogan. I’ve been following his work since he did it in the margins of his undone school work.
Titles AND roman numerals. I knew the roman numeral thing would have to go eventually. I think even the super bowl people wish they hadn’t gone that way. Too late now.
Well, obviously you get the accolades first, MOM.
Keep the numerals. It keeps the geek at the proper level. High.
The rollercoaster video is *hysterical*. I’m linking to it on LJ. You rule, cause this comic is fantastic, too.