Latest Rant


11/16/09
Where have I been? Certainly not updating my website and hardly on cam! Back in March, my motherboard died forcing me to buy a new PC. Between the hassle of setting it up and getting everything running again, I somewhat lost interest in displaying myself and also curtailed a lot of my internet activity. I'm back again though with a somewhat renewed interest.

I've been looking at other webcam options and have discovered some webcam communities. Since I still want to have my webcam feed on my own page, I'm trying to figure out a way to integrate them all so that I can basically appear in more than one place at a time (e.g. with some of these communities you would only be able to access my webcam through their site). I'll be playing around with different options so you may see my webcam page look a little different every so often.

The other big news is that next month my website officially turns 10 years old! I cannot believe it has been this long. Unfortunately I don't remember the exact date I went live, but it was mid-December of 1999. I don't know if I will do anything to mark the occasion but I will be making some changes. You may have already noticed that I cut out some of the features. My blog may be back albeit in a different form, and I may add some new stuff. I may also make the big move away from Notepad and start using a dedicated HTML editor, although I've grown fond of the simplicity of my website. Any changes though will come after the New Year since next month I will once again be presenting my annual Christmas update.

01/03/09
I can't believe it's already 2009. I've had this site up for a little more than nine years now and it almost seems like yesterday since I first set it up. I will admit I've lost some interest in it but I've always tried to maintain the cam feed. And yes, I'm still looking for a new outlet to run the feed from (see the prior rant). If my creative side takes over, you may see some new updates to the site because it really is due for a major overhaul. We'll see what this year brings.

12/05/08
I seem to be making updates only once a year, and it's always the Christmas stuff. Well, here it is again! As usual, I have a few more links added. I may be adding another page devoted solely to my Christmas tree. We'll see if time allows.

Now, onto some cam news. Regular viewers of this site (all two of you) may have noticed that I've rarely been on the cam in the past few months. A while back I had mentioned I had switched sources and the cam feed was coming from Camarades, which is a webcam community I belong to. To make a long story short, they finally caught on that I wasn't being billed for my elite membership and they cancelled my elite account. At one point I was a paying member, however when they switched billing providers several years ago, they seemed to have forgotten this and stopped billing me even though I still had full access as an elite member.

I do have the opportunity to reinstate my elite account. However, at the time I was paying it was something like $5.95 a month. Since then, the price has increased to $19.95 a month which I'm not willing to pay. Now, I can still use my Camarades account to transmit my webcam feed. However, since I am no longer an elite member, I have a lot less control over it. There are some privacy issues that I'm not happy about which I actually may be able to resolve if their software worked the way it was supposed to. Suffice to say, I have been limiting my time on cam although I will make an effort to be on more during the Christmas season.

I'm currently looking into other options regarding the webcam feed, especially if I can't resolve the Camarades issues. I'm sure I'll come up with something. In the meantime, Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings, and Happy New Year!

01/06/08
Happy New Year! Will there be any update to the site this year? Well, you'll just have to stay tuned. The cam will be on on a regular basis, although not necessarily every day. Is it improper English to say "on on"? Perhaps I should have said, "On a regular basis, the cam will be on", but I don't think that's proper either since "cam" is the main subject of the sentence.

12/04/07
Christmas, Christmas blah, blah, blah! Here's the usual Christmas update with some new links, etc. The tree should be finished around the 15th although I'll be putting it up in various stages since it takes so long. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

01/07/07
Happy New Year, blah, blah, blah.

12/07/06
Once again it's time for my annual Christmas update featuring Christmas themed pages. And yes, I said Christmas, not Holiday. So there. It's pretty much the same as last year. I added a few new sites on the links pages in addition to the returning ones. Once I get my tree up it should be on the cam quite often as I plan on having a really great one this year. My goal is to have it up some point between the 13th and 17th. Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

11/19/06
Okay, so I haven't actually been updating the site as of late, but the end of the year approaches and I do have some big news. First and foremost, I got a new webcam. It's a Philips SPC900NC and the picture quality is so much better than my not-so-old Logitech. The biggest improvement is that it captures really clear images even in dark conditions.

The other big news is that the cam image itself is running from a different feed. I was running a program called Webcam32 to capture shots that would upload every 20 seconds. The webcam images are now coming from a different source. For the past several years, I've belonged to a Webcam community called Camarades (ww.com) which is basically a place where people can share their live webcam feeds using the software provided by Camarades.

Every so often I would run my webcam through Camarades instead of my web site and only recently started doing so on a more frequent basis. The good thing though is that Camarades now has a way that you can link their feed to your own site so I can be live on Camarades and my own web site at the same time. If you're curious, my Camarades page is godzillacam.camarades.com, but other than some snapshots and stuff, you won't see anything more than you currently see from my site.

The big difference between my old software and the Camarades feed is that the new feed streams instead of uploading at a timed interval. Of course the actual time of the refresh can vary based on a number of factors but it should be more frequent than the old way. Also, since the feed is coming from Camarades I won't be using any of my bandwidth for the cam images. Unfortunately, I won't be able to include captions or the date and time on the images anymore, but you should be able to figure out if I'm live or not. You won't be able to click the image and open up another window with just the webcam feed anymore either. It's also possible I may switch back over to the old feed every once in a while for some reason. Also, if you do happen to visit some of the other Camarades cams, some of them are of an adult nature.

Some other news is that I started my own MySpace page this year and of course I don't update it that often either. If you want to visit it, the link is http://www.myspace.com/svgtom. It basically contains a lot of junk. While I post on my MySpace blog every so often, I haven't been updating my regular blog so I hope to catch up with it and get them in sync shortly.

Finally, once again it's almost time for the spectacular Christmas update! I hope to make this year's a little bit different, and provided I win some Ebay auctions, I'll have a kick-ass Christmas tree that should look great on the new cam. The update will be the first week in December but the tree will probably not be up until the following week or so.

01/15/06
A new year, a new time to promise updates and exciting changes to the site. Whether or not that happens, we'll have to see. At least the cam will be on frequently and I'm forcing myself to make frequent entries to my blog that no one reads. Stay tuned.

12/04/05
Okay. So it's been a long time since I made any updates. I guess the big reason is because I moved earlier this year. I'm still getting settled into my new place so obviously this site was not my top priority. I haven't even been on cam since early August. The good news is that I now plan on being on cam on a regular basis. Hope you enjoy the views of the new place. I can't believe Christmas is here again. Along with it comes the usual Christmas themed version of my website.The big difference this year is with The Christmas Links pages. I've gotten rid of the music and falling snowflakes (which Windows XP SP2 didn't like), and now, eack time you click on a link it will open up a new window instead of taking you directly to the site. I will also be updating the Christmas Poll as well as adding a new Christmas page in the next few days. Have a great Holiday season and best wishes for the coming New Year.

01/09/05
Another year has come and gone and a new one is here which presents me with an opportunity to make major updates to the site. I really may not make any major chnages. It depends what I'm on the mood for as well as how much time I have. The one thing I do hope to do is resolve the issues the site has with Windows XP SP2 so that those annoying warning messages don't pop up. I'll see what I can do.

12/04/04
Well, here it is - the usual Christmas update. I think this is the earliest I've ever gotten it done. It's pretty much the same as last year and the year before. There are some cool new Christmas links so check them out. One unfortunate thing I noticed though is just about every page on my site gets that annoying pop-up warning from Windows XP SP2 regarding active content. It also prevents some of the graphics and stuff from loading so you'll have to allow the blocked content. I've managed to find a way to get midi files to play without the warning but I'm still working on the rest of it. This includes the loading of the webcam image. Again, you'll have to allow blocked content to see everything. That's it for now. Season's Greetings and best wishes for the new year!

11/14/04
Good God! Has it really been ten months since the last update? For those of you still sticking with me, thanks for hanging around. I know I haven't been on cam much lately either, but that will change. Unfortunately I don't have much in the way of updates this time around except for the links. I've gotten rid of the broken ones and added a few new ones. I was working on another email scam which took a bizarre turn of events. Unfortunately, I haven't heard back in a while and I really don't want to post something that's unfinished. Another thing I haven't been keeping up to date is my blog. Again, I will try to make more frequent entries. Rest assured though, that as usual I'll be presenting my annual Christmas themed site for the holidays. Expect the updates around the first week in December.
P.S. Apparently Windows XP SP2 doesn't like the midi files I have playing on my various pages. If you get a pop-up warning about installing malicious code or some such nonsense, don't worry as it is only my midi files trying to play. Ignore the warning and let the music play.

01/19/04
Well it's another year already. I didn't mean to get rid of all the Xmas stuff so late but I was having FTP issues that prevented me from doing uploads. I'm still not sure what the future holds for this site. I'm working on a couple of new email scams but I'll see how they pan out before I add them to the site. That's it for now.

12/07/03
It's hard to believe it's the end of the year already. I've had this site up for about four years now although it seems less than that. As usual, I am proud to present my Christmas themed site for the holidays. You'll find an updated Christmas links page along with the legendary Christmas Freak Out. You'll also find a new feature, The Great Cote d'Ivoire Email Scam Hoax, which has to be read to believed.

The real big news is that I've gotten a new PC. So far it hasn't given me any problems. Unfortunately, it runs Windows XP which doesn't support my old webcam so I was force to get a new one. Actually, I kind of messed up the old one in an attempt to clean it, creating a hazy sort of picture so I probably needed a new cam anyway. For a new cam, I decided to go with the Logitech Orbit cam. This cam is so new, every site including Logitech's lists it as not yet being released. CompUSA was selling it though which is where I bought it. I won't go into all the details of what I don't like about it, but suffice to say I am not happy with it at all, especially the picture quality. I may be shopping for another cam in the near future.

That's pretty much it for now. I have a few new ideas for the site in the New Year. Until then, have a safe, happy and peaceful holiday season.

10/24/03
As you can tell, it's been quite a while since I last updated the site. I guess I haven't been in the mood and/or too busy. You kind of lose interest when you don't get that many hits and it feels like you're doing all of this for naught. Also, not to make excuses, I have been having some major PC problems. Basically my hard drive has crashed twice. I'm still trying to recover it but fortunately I still have my old drive installed in my PC, and this is what I'm running off of. I know I'll probably end up getting a new PC sooner than later. Hopefully the old drive will hold out until then as I'm beginning to have doubts as to whether my primary drive is salvageable.

My other news is the change in content of the site. You may have noticed some of the regular features are gone from the main page. I just don't have the desire to keep updating them on a regular basis. Rather than get rid of them entirely, I have created an archive page featuring a "best of" collection. I'll probably be adding more to it soon. The main focus of my site has and always will be the webcam. I have also just started my own blog, the link for which is on the main page, and I have a couple of new features in the works that I am also thinking of adding.

Finally, back in June I stepped into the 21st century and got DSL. Although this now allows me to provide streaming video on the cam instead of just refreshing the image, it would probably cut into my monthly bandwidth too much. I may look into options to get around it though.

02/11/03
Sorry kids, but I had no choice but to take down the Valentine's Day page. I've been getting an astonishing number of hits. So much so that if I leave it up, I will exceed my monthly bandwidth. It looks like somebody linked me from their own Valentine's Day site, which probably explains all the hits. If I had known sooner I probably would have made the page all text instead, but since much of the text refers to the images displayed, I would need to do a major overhaul. Frankly, with only three days left to the big day, it's not really worth it. For those of you that got to see it, I hope you enjoyed it.

02/04/03
Okay, now this is weird. For those of you that have been with me awhile, you may remember the Valentine's Day page I had up last year. I wasn't intending to put it up again even though I still had the page layout uploaded to my host server. It wasn't linked to anything however so people wouldn't be able to access it unless they brought up my directory which would have listed it. Last month, I noticed that it was getting a significant number of hits based on the web stat tracker I use. Even more strange was that a midi file of the Love Boat theme was getting hits even though it was not uploaded to the server. It was not available for people to access even on the directory listing.

I checked my stats today for the prior three days and noticed that the Valentine page had 82 hits and the non-existant Love Boat midi file had been accessed a whopping 162 times. There were also 629 hits on gif files. I only have 2 small gifs on my web ring page, but the Valentine page contained quite a few gifs. Again, these files were not uploaded to the server so I'm not sure why these hits are registering. So I have a question for all of you techies. If a page layout specifies that it contains a specific file and that file does not exist on the server, would a stat tracker register that file as being hit?

I'm not sure where all these hits are coming from. It's possible that I had signed various guestbooks and whatnot last year and included the Valentine page link. Anyway, since it appears to be so popular, I have reinstated the Valentine Page on my site this year. Note that it is exactly the same as last year and I haven't even checked to see if all the links work. Anyway, enjoy.

On a side note, if you are planning to sign my guestbook simply to promote your porn site, don't bother as I will be deleting those entries. I've gotten a couple in the past week and it's pretty anoying.

01/04/03
Happy New Year everyone! I have no idea what I have in store for the site this year. You may see some major changes or just minor changes. Most of the regular features are back starting this month. Look for some additonal updates within the next week or so.

12/05/02
Season's Greetings. The usual Christmas junk has been uploaded for your amusement. It's pretty much the same as last year except there are some new links and the poll is different. Some of the regular features are still not back but will return in January. I'm also planning some sort of chat this month which may be announced or may be spontaneous. Since I haven't gotten out my Christmas decorations yet, it will be a little while before Christmas stuff is featured on the cam. Anyway, I hope everyone has a happy and healthy holiday season.

11/27/02
Welcome to the stripped down version of The Pleasure Box. If you're wondering where I've been, I had to take the site offline for awhile. In an effort to direct more traffic to site, I inadvertently ended up with more hits than I could handle. In a period of about three days, over seven hundred people visited the site! If I didn't take the site offline for a little bit, I would have exceeded my bandwidth for the month before it was even half over.

I've been monitoring the bandwidth usage everyday, and based on the number of hits I'm now getting, I'm comfortable that I won't go over my allotted amount. To make sure though, you've probably noticed that most of The Pleasure Box features are gone, along with the music and graphics. Fear not, for they will return at some point. Some will return in December along the rest of the usual Christmas junk, and the rest will be back after the new year. Hopefully I won't run into bandwidth problems in December, otherwise I will have to resort to the same drastic measures I did this month.

11/02/02
Yeah, yeah, I know. I haven't updated the site in a while. Part of the problem is that I'm still not sure what direction I want to take the site in, what to keep and get rid of, what to add, etc. I'll probably be getting rid of the stupid stories, keeping the dirty book reviews, the poll and the links. I haven't decided yet about Burn in Hell. I'm currently working on updating the links pages, so you should see that update in a couple of weeks or so. Plus, in December I'll be having the traditional themed holiday pages featuring the legendary Christmas Freak Out page. Until then, if anyone has any suggestions for the site, drop me a line.

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