Responding to comments... 'cause "yay! comments!"

Rebecca said… Good grief, what a PAIN! As if working a full-time job (don't remember if you still work the part-time one too) isn't enough distraction. Does the hacking fiasco mean: 1) You now have a different webhost. 2) You're looking for a different webhost. LOL

Yes, I am working 2 jobs. I wasn't for a while, but they invited me back at Waldenbooks in October. Did you know that employees of Waldenbooks get 33% off on purchases at Waldenbooks and Borders? Yeah, I'm pretty much working for the discount. Whoot Manga! Not that I have time to read what I buy these days. Besides the 2 jobs (I work about 50-60 hours a week between the two) I've also taken on a plush commission that's eating up what little free time I have. I'm making a Zoidberg doll (from Futurama). I'm having a lot of fun making it, but any time I'm sewing I can't be working on the site. I need Herminone's time turner thingie! Or they need to add extra hours in the day. I don't sleep much, which helps some. During the week I typically don't go to bed until 1 or 2 am and get up at 7 in the morning. It seems like I have at least 3 things to do for every hour I have in the day. I'm really looking forward to finishing this commission so that I can have some more time to work on the site. I feel guilty working on the site instead of the commission I've been paid for. I keep thinking about quitting the Waldenbooks job, I don't make much money for it but the discount is just soooooo tempting that I'll probably keep with it. My dream is to be able to make enough from my con trips to live on, so then I can quit my bank job and be a professional fangirl! How cool would that be! Even cooler is... last summer proved that's not an impossible dream. I just have to work harder. As to the webhost situation. No, I'm actually staying with Ace-host. Ace-host is about my 4th (paid) host for the site, the others have been dollarhost (good, reliable, but 0 features and not enough bandwith), alwayswebhosting.com (sucked! my site was down more then it was up with them it seemed!), infinology.com (so-so, expensive and terrible customer service! They banned anime websites from their packages). Ace-host is cheap, has a ton of features and gives me a lot of bandwith and diskspace to work with. Currently I have 100 gigs of bandwith a month and 5 gigs of diskspace. I was at 80 gigs and 3 gigs, but they bumped both over this past snafu. Some version of the "RandomFandom" website has existed since at least 2001 (that's the oldest backup I have, but I really think it's been around since 2000). Older websites of mine, that had different names and slightly different content focus (kind of like beta versions of this site) have been around since 1997. So you could say Randomfandom is over 8 years old! Wow, it's been a prety wild ride [oldfogey] I remember when the big news was that you could now change background colors and imbed images right in the webpage[/oldfogey] This site may be a pain in the tucus sometimes (like now with the hacker thing) but I have way too much fun with it to give up.

Thanks for the update. Nice to see the year in review - sorry you missed out on Katsucon because of some stupid wedding (oh wait, that was my wedding, never mind). :) Next year you can tell people you went to "Cotonou Con" I wonder if there are any cons in Africa? - Shelly

Lol, your wedding was worth missing Katsucon for. ^_^ Besides, the split hotel format for Katsucon was seriously strange! I didn't even know there was another part of Artist Alley in another building till after it had closed! How weird! I'm glad I wasn't selling there, I think I probably would have been hidden in one of those corners. I checked out anime-cons.com and there are no anime cons in Africa. We'll have to have a mini-con at your house, since we'll have all anime fans in Cotonu in attendence after all.(I'm assuming.)

Quickie Con Year in Review: January - Ohayocon '05 - Airport lost my luggage for a day and a half. Great venue, but we had to share it with a "Teens for Jesus" summit (We called 'em God Con). Made decent money and had fun in Otaku's Choice. Febuary - Katsucon '05 - Only got to go Sunday. Split building con had me confused. Really glad I wasn't selling there. May - Anime North '05 - Wow, lots of running back and forth. Was on 2 panels, sold really well in the Artist Alley (thanks to Jade) ^_^ Enjoyed spending time with Regina and seeing her perform. Missed all of Friday, bits and peices of Sat, but Sunday was all con. ^_^ Got to stay and extra day because it was a long weekend. July - Anime Expo '05 - ROCKY start, Expo's Artist Alley needs some SERIOUS administrative re-working. Despite that had a lot of fun w/ all the people I got to meet (the RSC girls, Rod, Mishi & Eric) Having my booth next to Clega sealed my *need* for a BJD. Totally surreal being in the Artist Alley. August - Otakon '05 - Everytime I take my car somewhere I have trouble (blown tire this time in Rochester). It was fun getting in early to Baltimore and seeing the Aquarium. Artist Alley was huge and overwhelming. Did very well. ^_^ Made enough to buy my first doll, Irish (an obitsu 60cm). Got to talk w/ Mindy for a little bit. Only got to see a little bit of the convention (AMVS!). Really need to get a partner who still loves the anime/manga scene like I do. September - Onna '05 - Got to meet up with Cat again and saw Usa-p and Christy for the frist time in 2 years. Finally got to meed Elina. Had fun playing the phrase game, got to be on another panel. It was fun actually "attending" a con instead of working a con. I really hope there will be another one. ^_^ That's a quick year in review for the cons I've been to, if anyone was interested.