If you didn't read BME in 1999, you might want to click here. If I paid more attention I'd have done one this year, but I didn't even realize it was April until now.
Oh, and at the urging of Scrunnel, I've added a warning to the jewelry section of the classifieds. All used jewelry should be treated as contaminated, and sterilized in an autoclave before use. Most piercing studios will do this for you for a $5 fee. Be warned that some jewelry such as acrylic and wood can NOT be adequately sterilized, and dangerous diseases could be transmitted via these jewelry types.
So to help me sleep on the airplane, I just dusted off my old MP3 player. It's actually pretty cool, because it's exactly the same shape as a regular tape, and has an electromagnetic interface so you can use it to convert an old car stereo into an MP3 player. It also has a headphone jack and can work standalone. Of course, it only has 32 MB (enough for seven or eight songs), but it's better than nothing. It's tempting to get a better one, but really, the odds of me using it much are slim to none.
First of all, I just got an IM from Ryan that the first 50 Bear action figures will be in stock later today! I'll get the packaging made before I leave on vacation, and should be able to post pictures of it today with any luck!
Also, the Piercing Pioneers contest has been removed. If you'd like to know why, click here. Finally, I am so thrilled with my latest tattoo… I just unbandaged it, and even though it bruised more than any tattoo I've ever gotten, it looks amazing.
Oh, and I've just updated BME with about a hundred new experiences…
Not only that, but it's looking like I'm going to have to sell some of my current cars to keep all this alive. On Wednesday my credit card processor stopped dealing with me (and a lot of other sites). That means no income for the site from memberships AT ALL, and they also seized as much as $50,000 in monies owed. I might get this money back, but it could be as long as six months and by then it will be too late. It was bad enough a couple months ago when it just looked like this happened… Now it really has…
This puts BME, IAM, and ModCon at serious risk. While BMEshop is doing well, it doesn't come close to being able to pay for the bandwidth of the sites. Any donations by PayPal to paypal@bmezine.com would be greatly appreciated. BME costs approximately $5000 a month to host; there are 6000+ members just on IAM. Even if everyone only throws in a few dollars it would go a long way.
I'm having to make some very unpleasant decisions which involve (as I said) selling some things very dear to me to pay for it, offering part ownership of the site to a third party, etc. Nice of all this to happen right as I'm leaving on vacation. Ha, ha, universe. Very funny.
To top it all off, my provider has just had a major hardware failure totally screwing things up there… Which isn't strictly speaking my problem, but it does cascade down.
Well, the good news is that I got tattooed today.
Oh, and I know that the first thing that'll happen will be a pile of “Support BME” banners all over this site. While I apprecaite it emotionally, it's not what will save the site.
OK, first of all: Damn that Porsche is nice. They're running the numbers right now to see if it can happen, but with any luck I'll be proudly driving a Carrera 4 Cabriolet in a month. There's also a real nice 6-speed Carrera 2 Cabriolet, but I think I'd rather have the 4×4.
I got an IM message earlier today asking me to post pictures of my cars. So… Here you go. This is my 2000 Audi TT Quattro. It's a first edition car without the stupid wing or sloppy electronic stability control, one of only a couple hundred that exist in Canada. Mine is chipped and has a better exhaust, but is largely stock. It has all the options (6-disc CD, etc.). They're absolutely wonderful cars; if you don't mind the tiny back seat I can't recommend them highly enough:
PS. I'm getting tattooed tomorrow. On Saturday there will be an experience update on BME, and then on Sunday I will post a huge picture update to tide you over while I'm gone.
