Followup

Wednesday, March 13, 2002

I don't know if this is “fake funmail” but it sure is funny:

From: "Beer Schitz"
Subject: Apology

Hey, sorry about the 'angry old lady' email I sent you yesterday. Completely my fault for getting so worked up over nothing. I'm sure you had every intention of replying to my email, why wouldn't you? The ideas were brilliant. I know that we all get behind sometimes, hell even Indigo called to let me know that what I was waiting for is finally on it's way. Being out in the bush most of the time, I don't have alot of contact with people so, my patience wears thin sometimes. Combine that with a love of CC on my days off and I get down-right mean.

New Brunswick may be alot of things, but a social place it ain't!

Anyway, I just wanted, soberly, to say I'm sorry and throw some more ideas at you...how about: 'Pierced, Just Like Jesus' or 'I Like Your Holes, Want Something To Stick In 'Em?'. I think the second one is more of a button than a t-shirt. You can have those ones for free, as a peace offering. By the way, I noticed that the managers name changed on the site. Is that because the guy who was running the shop was an ass or did the pansy get married and take his boyfriends name? Just kidding.

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Two things

Wednesday, March 13, 2002

1. Donations

Anyone who has donated money to BME via PayPal in the last six months or so should now have in their email box a password which will cover the next full year of IAM access. Please note though that because of PayPal's terms of service, I really can't accept payments via them for memberships. This is just a thank you to those that donated without expecting a return, not a current payment option.

2. Submissions

I have added the following to the image submissions FAQ:

But I only want IAM access. What can I do?
If you only want IAM access, and don't need access to BME's password protected section, include that in your email (ie. say "PLEASE SEND ME ONLY AN IAM PASSWORD"), and you'll get a membership that lasts about three times as long (but will only access IAM).

I hope that strikes a fair compromise. The whole point of these changes is not for me to turn a profit — it's just to start breaking even… I've reached a point in my life where I have to start worrying about the future — I'm building a house now, and hopefully one day a family, and that family ultimately has to take financial priority.

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Funmail

Tuesday, March 12, 2002

All this scarytalk needs to be balanced out with a funmail. First though I just wanted to say that even though March 17th is the predicted day for this switch, it will be a staggered change. Most likely, the “BME membership required” condition will only apply during the peak hours at first (since that's what really forced the decision).

So, if you don't have a membership, and you haven't had time to get one, it just means you'll have to use IAM in the morning instead of the evening. I wish I could just pay all your bills myself, but the simple fact is that I can not, and if I am not paying them, and you are not paying them, then no one is paying for them.

Anyway, the funmail. This came to the shop yesterday afternoon:

From: "Beer Schitz"
Subject: Shirts

What about a shirt that sez 'Tattooz Saved My Life'? or mebbe 'My P.A. saved my marriage'?

Think about it. And don't think you can steal those, I wanna be paid if you use 'em!!

OK, I at least thought the second one was kind of funny… But before we could reply, we got this second message this afternoon:

From: "Beer Schitz"
Subject: Pansy

I see you don't even respond to emails. Nice. I'm just trying to help out and give you some ideas and you can't even be bothered to respond. That's great customer service! In fact, you remind me of another great Canadian company...maybe you've heard of Indigo? Yeah, they're just as good as you at getting back to people with ideas. Maybe you should have a conference with that Heather Reismann woman. You could have a big customer service party together. If you want more ideas, I've got them, I'd be glad to help you with them, for a price. Don't doubt me, if you don't want them someone else will, then you'll be out of business.

I'm just trying to keep it Canadian...

Suffice it to say, we've decided against working with this guy! Oh, and if this is “Canadian” behavior, colour me Yankee please! I mean colOR!!!!

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Gargle

Tuesday, March 12, 2002

First of all, is it just me or was IAM running super slow last night? Looking at the server, I couldn't see any extreme load on the machine — the CPU never maxxed out — so I'm not sure where the problem was… If it happens again today I'll look into it more seriously.

I'll do some more fiddling with the custom layout tools today… But I'll briefly mention a few news stories that I thought had merit. The first to catch my eye was Bush's new “NO NEUTRALITY” stance. Why shouldn't countries have the right to be neutral? So now Iceland (because they're neutral, not because Bush mentioned them) is the evil enemy, because they're neutral? It's one thing to lump in countries like Iraq, but it starts getting ridiculous when you claim that neutral = evil as well.

I'll just quickly blip a few stories here as I desperately need to get to work:

  • Washington has love affair with terror – A brief history of foreign deaths caused by the US. I had no idea that the US bombing killed nearly 3 million Koreans… Note: this is not a “US had it coming” type article, just a death-toll count.
  • The Worst Day of the War – Contrasts differing responses to American troop deaths (“worst day of war”) to Afghan civilian deaths (“president's approval soars”).
  • War 'playing into al-Qaeda's hands' – How the war has helped al-Qaeda and similar groups far more than hurting or even threatening them.

Well… If that doesn't suck enough for you, and you want some more down-to-earth evil that's easier to understand and easier to beat, just click here instead.

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More little changes

Sunday, March 10, 2002

OK, I've finally scanned a picture of an unusable money order and put it on the paid application pages — it's quite shocking how often I get money orders that are stamped with “NEGOTIABLE ONLY IN THE US” (which of course I can not cash here). What's even more shocking is that most of these people tell me that the post office specifically told them that they could be cashed in Canada. They can't.

I've also added a “paid IAM” option to the signup pages. This will also cover the bonus features if you don't have a membership already (this way you don't have to pay for a BME membership if you don't want to and can just cover your IAM bills instead). Don't buy one of these yet though! There aren't any bonus features yet — as soon as there are I'll post about it here and then you can decide.

Well, I think it's about time to switch over to video editing… I'm thinking that I'll probably post a scarification video on saram by luisg (who incidentally I think is now in the job market if there are any quality shops looking for a piercer).

Note: Before anyone gets worried, I have no plans to make IAM pay-only. This pay option is just for people who don't want to send in pix/stories for some reason. In addition, paid users are subject to the same rules as free users, so this is not a way to bypass TOS.

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