Improved Facebooking

For those of you who follow SMBHQ's Facebook Page, all blog and news posts should now properly sync to the page.  Hopefully the same can be said for the Twitter page.

The News Shall Continue!

Thanks to Gage for keeping up with new Mario news during my retirement.  I updated the SMBHQ main page to emphasize the news posts.

I thought it would be fair to post an update....

Since my last post was in June, I thought I would update you guys on the situation around here.

In the last few months I decided that my real life was starting to take over and I was more focused in kick-starting my actual career than spending time with this website.  In addition, a consensus was building that SMBHQ as a whole is a bit of a relic of the 1990s and it will probably never be a "serious" site.

I talked to Kyle and it was agreed upon that the site would be put into archive status (though I would still contribute the odd blog post).  A retrospective was supposed to be made in time for SMBHQ's birthday, but it never came about.  I am sure that it'll happen eventually (I'll talk to Kyle about it), and it will definitely be something to look forward to.

Until then....

Sorry for the Dry Spell

Since coming back from my trip, it has actually been a busy month with me preparing for my graduation (which was earlier this week) and being glued to the TV for the World Cup.

I promise to come up with something soon.

Checking In

I'm still in the UK, though I will be coming home on Friday and I will work to have the Super Mario Galaxy 2 game page up sometime next week.

Sigh

I'm leaving on my trip today and I never got around to making that Super Mario Galaxy 2 game page.  I'll make it my first priority when I return June 4.

A Conundrum

Super Mario Galaxy 2 comes out May 27, yet I'm going away on two week trip to Europe May 19.  I'll probably end up creating a game page for the game early and post it before I leave.

Don't know why I didn't do this in the first place.

SMBHQ's Facebook page can now be accessed from the simple and easy to remember URL of http://www.facebook.com/smbhq.

You should also notice a new "like box" on the bottom of the main page.

D.I.Y. Gamepage Today or Tomorrow

I just finished writing my review for WarioWare D.I.Y. all that's left for me to do is to finish the game page and I should post either later today or tomorrow.

Five Second Games Are Addictive!

I can't believe how much fun I am having with WarioWare D.I.Y. (especially when it comes to making games).  I'll try to have a game page (and review) ready by the end of the week.

D.I.Y. Get

Just picked up WarioWare D.I.Y. today.  That along with Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story will give me a lot of Mario action for a while (and content for the site).

Finally Something Related to the Site

I just got Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story for my birthday so you could probably expect a review of the game sometime in the near future.

Update on Updates

I have been finished school for a few days now and have been taking a bit of a breather.  I plan on doing a game page for WarioWare: D.I.Y. sometime next week.

BTW, make sure to wish me a happy 28th birthday on Saturday.

Joke's On Us

Sadly, I was a little too busy to really think up of a good April Fool's joke for this year.

The good news is I am just finishing up and I should be able to continue with the site in the next week or two.

Still Swamped

I'm still being kept quite busy with my final batch of assignments, though I should have plenty of free time come April.

On the plus side, this is the 100th blog post!

A Friendly Note

This month is my final month of the school year (as well as my undergrad) and I expect to be swamped with assignments right until the start of April.

As such, expect updates to be a little thin.

The Mailbag Should Be Ready Tonight

I'm aiming to have the new mailbag ready for sometime tonight.  The update will also come with a new redesign for the page that will allow for easier access to the archived mailbags.

Mailbag by Week's End

All my answers are in.  All that's left to do is for me to find time to put together the column.

Mailbag's on the Way

A new mailbag should be posted within the next few days.  I'm just waiting for the final few responders to send me their answers.

Blog Changes

Alas, Blogger will be ending FTP support in a few weeks, so both this blog and the news will now be hosted on Blogspot.

You shouldn't really notice though, since the entries will still be synced to the SMBHQ main page and both blogs will be embedded onsite.

SMBHQ and Social Networking

Just created a new Facebook page for SMBHQ.  It'll work the same as the Twitter page in that updates will be synced to it.

Lookin' Good

I've been working on the redesign all evening and it is now at something that is workable.

If you are curious, the "Extras" page contains all the links to sections no longer included in the main navigation.  Most of those sections weren't updated anymore, so it cleans up most of the clutter.

Hope you enjoy SMBHQ 2.0!

It's a start

I hope you like the beginnings of the redesign.  I will give it some polish when I have some more time (and ignore the broken extras link).

Change is coming

I decided that I will indeed go for a web 2.0 design for SMBHQ.

It won't be perfect, but it will be better than the site currently looks

Hmmmm....

I've been toying with the possibility of giving SMBHQ a complete overall (because you know it probably needs it).

However, the more I think of it, the more I realize that it will be a next to impossible task.

Oh well.

Darn It!

Good News: Amazon Associates is now integrated with Blogger, which would have been useful for posting purchase links on the News blog.

Bad News: It seems this integration only works for blogs hosted on the blogspot server.  Since SMBHQ's blogs publish straight to the site, we apparently can't use it.

Oh well.

We Want Your Questions!

It's been ages since we had a mailbag.  However, before doing so, we need some questions to answer.

Send your questions over to smbhqmailbag@gmail.com

Main Page Changed (Again)

I think this new change is better than the Twitter idea.  I found a site that combines all the feeds into one, so now you get one single update stream (without the need for the Twitter widget).

Hope you enjoy it.

So long Jay

For those of you that don't read the forums, Jay Resop has officially stepped down from all involvement with SMBHQ.

MetalMan has been running NC for the last few months and is expected to continue doing so.

Here's wishing Jay well in his future endeavors.

Main Page now Twitterfied

The updates on the main page is now a direct feed from SMBHQ's Twitter page.  With this new feature, all the site updates, blog posts, and news articles are combined into one stream.  The only downside is that I cannot set Twitterfeed (the site that automatically syncs the feeds to Twitter) to sync at an interval less than half an hour, so you will be seeing updates reported later than they actually happen.  That issue aside, I'm sure this new update will break SMBHQ further into Web 2.0.

Random Thoughts on Game & Watch

I received my Game & Watch Collection Club Nintendo reward yesterday (after spending nearly a year to accumulate enough points).

For games that are nearly 30 years old, they are still quite fun and addictive.  I was also amazed at the attention to detail that went into the Nintendo DS conversion (even going as far and adding "LCD shadows")

I really expected more activity during December.

I guess that's the holidays for ya.  I'll try to have something within the week.

All's Good (For Now)

All the "Wii Revolution" game pages has been successfully transfered to the new format.  I'll get to the rest later today.

Don't mind the mess.

It looks like I'm running into a few formatting issues installing the new game page look on the old pages.  Once I finish uploading the new PHP files, I'll work on fixing up the pages so they look OK under the new format.  In the meantime, just ignore it if the game pages look at bit messed up.

New Game Page This Week

If all goes well, there should be a new game page for New Super Mario Bros Wii by the end of the week.

New Era Page Design - Give Me Your Feedback

I've been experimenting with a new design for the era pages and I would like you guys to tell me what you think.

My test page for the main design is the game page of Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.

Here is what the page currently looks like.

Here is the page with the new design.

I made the design so I could easily incorporate it into the existing pages with very little hassle.  Most likely this design will used for the new game page I plan to make for New Super Bros Wii.

So sorry for the lack of updates

This semester has been my busiest ever (thanks mostly to a class they had 4-5 required reading a week).

I'll be finished for the holidays by next week and I promise that updates will be more frequent (at least for the month of December).

Random Thought

Seeing New Super Mario Bros Wii in the store really makes me wish I owned a Wii.

C'est Le Vie.

Enjoy the new design

MetalMan helped to redesign the main page.  Hope you enjoy it.

Things have been really busy this month, but there should be some new updates soon.

I Think I've Been With This Site Too Long....

...now, I'm dressing up as Mario (Happy Belated Halloween).

Itsa Me!

Just received my Club Nintendo Mario Hat.

I'll probably make a Products Page entry for it within the week.

In Memory of Captain Lou....

"Captain" Lou Albano - 1933 - 2009

New Comments System Fully Integrated

Disqus finally added Blogger importing, so now all the comments on both this blog and the news page are fully hosted by Disqus (which should help make the blogs have a bit more of a discussion format).

Comment away.

Sorry for the Lull

The last 2-3 weeks were very hectic for me with both the return to school and the Toronto International Film Festival.

Things have calmed down now and I hope to have a new game page for Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story up within the next day or two.

Thought I would share this with SMBHQ readers

I went to the Toronto Fan Expo last weekend (the Canadian equivalent of the San Diego Comic-Con) and I had the pleasure of meeting Victor Lucas and Scott Jones from G4 Canada (I wonder if Kyle knows them through his freelance work)

Here's a photo of me with them:

Update on Updates

I can say that the recent lack of updates can be attributed both to me not liking to be on the computer when it's hot and that I can't really think of any good content for updates.

Perhaps I should find a way to make user-submissions more accessible, since I hardly received any of those (heck, even the mailbag questions have really slowed down).

Feel free to comment with suggestions.

What happens when you mix Mario with Tarantino?

Something like this:

Gone for a Week

Just a notice that I will be away for the next week or so.

As such, there will be no updates until then.

600 Club Nintendo Points and All I Get is a Hat?

True, it's a Mario Hat, however I was expecting a little more for all the work I spent accumulating points.

Well, I also had the option of a Punch Out Wii download, but that is even more worthless, since I don't own a Wii.

Oh well.

Don't Ever Promise Updates During a National Holiday

I put into consideration that we were going into a long weekend when I promised the update. As such, I haven't been home much this week.

So, I will now make sure to have that update ready for Monday (maybe sooner if I have time).

Updates to Look Forard to

I'm planning to continue the DSiware game pages with a page for Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again.

Expect that page by week's end.

The Five: New Super Mario Bros

Written by Kyle Orland

http://www.crispygamer.com/previews/2009-06-08/e3-2009-the-five-new-super-mario-bros-wii.aspx

Top 45 Unusual Stylish Super Mario Artworks

They sure are unusual.

http://thedesigninspiration.com/articles/top-45-unusual-stylish-super-mario-brothers-artworks/

Watermarks are the bane of my existence

My biggest pet peeve when making game pages is that I have to search for ages to find screenshots that don't have some sort of watermark slapped on them.

It's not like those sites own the Nintendo copyrighted images.

A couple of Asian guys playing Mario Music on Guitar and Violin

This should make your day.

The Beginning of a New Era

Not exactly.

However, this blog will now be used more often now that the headlines are visible on the main page.

Slim Updates for the Near Future

Things are really busy this term on the school-front.

I find myself having trouble keeping up with my schoolwork let alone finding time to update SMBHQ.

As such the updates will be a little less frequent for the next couple of months.

Hope you understand.

Why Updates Have Been Slim Lately

You might have noticed that when November came around, the updates almost slowed to a halt, with the only activity being the NC Elections.

As you may or may not know, outside of doing SMBHQ, I am currently studying for a degree in film studies at York University in Toronto. Well, on November 6, the teach assistants and contract faculty went on strike, suspending my classes and leaving my year in limbo.

The last six weeks have been a very stressful time for me and I have been spending a lot of my time either trying to keep up with my assignments or playing World of Warcraft to get my mind off the stress.

I will still try to do updates when I can and there is still an RPC on Friday I am excited about.

Hopefully the strike will be over soon and things can return to normal in my life.

It's an imposter I tell you!

Some of you may have noticed a "blog" for SMBHQ on blogspot (I will not post the link and give it free publicity - but you can probably figure it out).

That blogspot blog has absolutely nothing to do with SMBHQ. The only official blog for SMBHQ is this blog that you are reading now.

Ignore that blogspot blog and hopefully the guy will get bored and stop posting pictures of dogs.

An easy solution to not owning a Wii

Next week I am going to start adding what I call "In-Store Reviews."

These will be short reviews (probably only a paragraph), which will based on my play experiences via in-store displays or similar demo formats. This will allow me to review games that I have not purchased, such as pretty much are the Mario games for the Wii.

Instead of putting a rating, I will say how willing I would be to playing the game in full. Then of course, if I ever do buy the game, I will later write a full review (though I would still archive the original).

Look out for it.

Get ready for Mario Kart month!!

The entire month of May is going to be declared "Mario Kart month" at SMBHQ.

We already have the Mario Kart Wii contest going on and later this week I will be posting the game page for that game.

Then, as part of my ongoing development of the Era Pages, in the subsequent weeks I will post game pages (and reviews where possible) for the three previous Mario Kart games (those being Mario Kart DS, Mario Kart Double Dash, and Mario Kart Super Circuit).

Hope you enjoy the racing action!

Yeah, I'm and old geezer

Today is my 26th birthday!

I am now at least a decade older than most of the fanbase of SMBHQ.

SMBHQ's Super Smash Bros Coverage

Super Smash Bros Brawl just came out and it is probably the biggest release this year for the Wii.

I want to make sure that there is proper coverage on the site for the came, at the very least a decent game page.

However, getting content for said game page can be hard when 90% of sites watermark their artwork and screenshots (something I've never understood -- it's not like they own the rights to images from games)

However, I should be able to get enough content for a decent sized game page, which will be up within the week.

Update on the Era Pages project

I figured that the first blog post of 2008 should be an update of the ambitious project of having all the game information in one convenient section.

I was glad towards the end of last year to successfully have created game pages for every game from 2006 to present. This year I hope to create game pages for the Gamecube era, maybe even trying for two game pages at a time.

I'm working on a minor adjustment for the gamelist pages, which should surface as an update either later today (if I have time) or sometime within the week.

The adjustments are as follows:

• A change in the colour-scheme for the Gamecube Era (purple) and Will Revolution (Grey)
• The games will now be listed as rows in the table, which looks a lot neater.
• I'm adding logos for the systems. I even managed to hunt down logos for rare items, such as the GBA E-Reader and the Philips CD-i.
• The main addition, will be the inclusion of "quick links," where you easily get access to reviews, game guides, or codes (subject to availability). I would consider that a fair alternative to having a separate page linking them.

I have the new Wii Revolution list pretty much done. I will work on the other pages later today and hopefully you will see them soon.

6Mil and Counting

I just noticed that the counter on SMBHQ has passed 6 million.

Thanks to all the people over the years that helped reach this milestone.

10th Anniversary: One thing down, a billion to go

I finished my redesign of the SMBHQ front page for the 10th Anniversary.

Other than navigation, it's not too different than the current one.

However, there is still lots of preparation in the two weeks we have left.

I've discovered that SMBHQ is compatible with a Nintendo Wii... Also, I merged my Blogger accounts with my gmail account.

And I'm back.....

It kind of sucks saying a tearful goodbye, only to return 6 hours later.

However, my mom made a good point to me by saying that if I have time to go to the movies and play video games I have time to update this site.

As such, I'm giving it another go.

So, get ready for a new era of SMBHQ with me and MetalMan making things pretty busy around here.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

As many of you no doubt read last night, Sean has decided to cease his duties as webmaster of SMBHQ to focus on his schoolwork. We thank Sean for his years of service to the site and wish him the best of luck in his current and future endeavours.

Taking his place as the main webmaster for SMBHQ will be MetalMan88, formerly of the Super Smash Quest section and more recently an updater for the Super Smash Stadium. In his tenure, MetalMan promises to "help get some of the cobwebby sections back up to spec, so look forward to plenty of updates with my name on them."

I also plan to take a more active role in the site, striving for at least weekly updates to some of the more stagnant sections of the site. Look for regular posting to pick up starting in April, and thanks for bearing with us during the transition.

Time to say goodbye

In November 1997 Kyle let me take over the guides section and I have been with SMBHQ for the last 8 1/2 years or so.

There was a point it seemed like I was running half the site, as I kept adding more and more sections to my repertoire on the site. There is of course Mysteries, which ended up being my main contribution. There is also the chat room, the mailbag, and who knows what else.

Then in August 2004, I was rewarded for my dedicated contributions by becoming co-webmaster of the site.

But now, 4 months before SMBHQ's 10th Anniversary and 2 weeks before my 25th birthday, it is time for me to move on.

I would stay if I could, however, real life has that habbit of sneaking up on you. As some of you may know I went back to full-time studies at York University in Fall 2005. I have tried to keep updating the site like normal, but things like readings, essays, and classes can really eat into one's schedule. Looking back, I can see how the updates really slowed within the last few years.

Kyle really wants SMBHQ to be updated more frequently by someone with more time on their hands. As such, I am stepping down and MetalMan is stepping in.

I wish him the best and hope that with him (and Kyle), SMBHQ would be in good hands.

The Pains of Finding a Ticker

It occurred to me that Gage was doing such a good job keeping the new current (much better than just me), however there were no notices of his reports on the front page.

As such, this morning I set out to find a way to convert the page's RSS feed into a news ticker on the front page.

Sadly, finding a good quality script was harder than I thought. To have an on-sever script, we needed to have things like PHP and CGI, which is not really easily available on SMBHQ's server.

As such, I had to settle for a third party option. It should settle our needs for the time being (though the little ad tends to get in the way).

I also had to get rid of the events ticker (most because it wasn't loading along with the new ticker. Hopefully, I'll find a new way of linking site events.

Peachfan will be at I-CON!

For anyone who reads this and is going to I-CON at the end of this month, I will be attending! I'll be rather obvious, in my Princess Peach costume, so if you see me around, feel free to say hi! I half-expect to see someone dressed as Bowser try to kidnap me, eheh.

Headaches in web design

You may not have noticed it, but the new mailbag look has been giving me a headache.

Apparently, most browsers except for I.E., are very picky about how CSS (that's Cascading Style Sheets) are coding. So, some new features that were appearing in i.e. (which doesn't care about the quality of the code) did not appear in Firefox.

After hours of tinkering, I believe I finally have it acceptable.

The torment I have to go through just so you can have some nice looking pages....

What to expect in the coming weeks at SMBHQ

I thought I would update you on what's planned at SMBHQ in the near future:

• Very soon (maybe even later tonight) we will finally have the next edition of the mailbag. Hopefully, we will be able to get these out more often.
• Since Christmas, I have been very busy playing Yoshi's Island DS. You could probably expect a game page for the game within the next week or so.
• I'll probably start a new mini-contest for the 10th anniversary (I should point out that the memories have been very good so far -- it would be hard just to choose a few)

That's all I have planned in a nutshell. Kyle was planning a little something, but I'll keep under wraps until I know it's ready and/or still going to happen.

SMBHQ New Years Resolutions.....nearly a week late

• Create new game pages for most, if not all, of the Mario games
• Get someone reliable to run the Fan Fiction section
• Relaunch Super Mario Mysteries
• Find some way to get people to actually check out the chat room
• Come up with something halfway decent for SMBhq's 10th Anniversary (especially after missing the 9th anniversary)
  

Game....Pages....Hard

I noticed it's more difficult than I expected to put together new game pages. It's overwhelming trying to put so much information into one place.

Maybe, I should try and NOT to do all the subsections at once......

Still, you should expect the first new game page later today.

SMBHQ has a blog?!

I've gotta check SMBHQ more often. I'm not even trying for one and now I'm in two.

Over in the SSS Section, we've been updating the bios and adding Epics we lost. We should have a new match up sometime in December, I'm hoping. Otherwise... (pulls out a cattle prod) I shall have to interfer. MWAHAHAHA!!! =P Have a happy holiday, fans!

Era Page update

You may be wondering what happened to the Era pages.

Well, I can say that the timeline will be ready very soon.

Then we can add game pages.

Let's go shopping

I noticed today that Amazon's aStore has upgraded allowing further customization. More specifically, it now allows me to add individual products instead of adding them based on keywords.

As such, I have been busy adding products to SMBHQ's aStore using the old HTML files from SMBHQ's previous store. Now, we pretty much have every existing Mario game in the store, including a few for the Wii (though you can't order them yet).

A few sections of the store (namely Books and Toys & Games) are still based on keywords. Mostly because, there are probably too many to list in those categories and I can't be bothered.

OK, well that's enough for now. Check out the store, you'll be glad that you did.

Oooh, this is nifty.

Wow, I feel a heck of a lot more important, now that I can make blog entries! Hooray for the blog!

And just so this isn't a total waste of an entry...



The official Peachfan cosplay. (Ignore my horridly messy room.)

One more thing...

I should point out that I am NOT reviving this blog because TMK now has one of their own.

Sure, we at SMBHQ jumped on the blogging bandwagon WAY before the other guys did, but that doesn't mean they aren't free to, literally, post their opinions.

I'm sure there's room for more than one Mario fansite with a blog. :P

Weeeeeeeeeee're Back!

After nearly 1 year and 4 months, the SMBlogHQ is back in business.

If all goes well, you should see posts by me, Kyle, and the other staff members.

That's all for the time being, now go get ready for the release of the Wii on Sunday!

That little thing called life

This is an advanced notice to people that, after the next full SMBhq update on August 1, I am going to take a break from SMBhq for about 2 months.

I am going to be enrolling into York University in Toronto (to persue an, eventual, BA degree in Information Technology) and I don't want the stress, that comes from maintaining the site, to distract me during this transition.

Super Mario Mysteries (my main specialty section) will still be updated and, if I have time, there might even be an RPC in September.

But other than that, the site is all Jay's for August and September.

State of SMBhq and Stuff

You may have been noticing that SMBhq is lacking in the update department a bit.

Well here's why.

Kyle Orland has been wanting me to get the era pages ready and I have been trying to concentrate on that. Also, I have been having trouble finding stuff (other than the era pages) that could be updated.

There is also the fact that I tend to be lazy at times (and the fact that I hate it when a website, that I do for a hobby, feels like a job).

There should, hopefully, be something that resembles an update within the next week. However, I will then be heading to Scotland for two weeks and (unless Jay does some updating) SMBhq will pretty much be on hiatus for much of May.

Ch-Ch-Changes

You probably noticed the new, smaller logo for SMBhq.

That is the first sign of the next, and hopefully final, redesign to the SMBhq main page.

This new main page design, which will launch tommorow, is probably my best yet and will probably end up being perennial design for the main page.

Then I can move on to more important things, like the Era Pages.

Super Mario World - The Epic!

If you have a good internet connection, I recommend for you to give this Super Mario World video a looksy.

http://www.lostcreation.com/bluejello/MarioMovie_lo.zip

Disk Space Woes

I've taken notice that SMBhq's files takes up 100+ MB on my hard drive.

On my 40GB Computer that would be no problem, however on my 18 GB Laptop (which I've been using for website work since last fall), with only 7GB free, SMBhq is taking up space that could be used for something else.

My solution is that, as soon as possible, I move SMBhq's files (in fact, ALL my website-related files) onto a USB Key Drive.

That would do 2 things:
1. It would free up some space on my hard drive.
2. It would allow me to work on SMBhq anytime, anywhere (just plug in the USB Drive).

Well, that's enough ranting for today.

Updates, Icons, and Random stuff

Hey guys. It's me, Metal, again. I've been doing plenty of updating at SSQ. First thing, there's enough mirrors to choke a camel, so don't worry about it ever going down. Second thing, a new season just started, and it'd be nice if you tried to join now rather than later. Finally, I updated several story logs, the rules, and added a nice navbar to the site. Check it out when you have time. The new layout for SMBHQ is great, too.

SMBHQ's New Years Resolution

Happy New Years!

That last year featured a lot in the way of rebuilding SMBhq for the future, and 2005 will be seeing more of that.

I will try to get all the era pages up and running by years end. Hopefully we won't be bombarded with too many new Mario games for when it's comes time to do the final (and most difficult) era page.

I'll be going through the 2004 Mario Releases soon and compile a list of nominees for the second Golden Toad Awards. You should expect voting to begin towards the end of the month.

That's all and, once again, have a Happy New Year.

BOTVGH New Hosted Site

SMBhq has recieved a new hosted site in the form of the popular Fan-Fiction site Battle of the Videogame Heroes.

I was negotiating with, BOTVGH webmaster, H Cuz a few months ago, about bringing BOTVGH to SMBhq, though the deal just closed this past Monday.

According to his blog, H Cuz plans to have BOTVGH up and running on the SMBhq server by the end of the year. You should keep checking that Blog for future updates on this subject.

Hello again. I updated a lot of SSQ. The new ad changes seem to work fine... and I've implemented a new code that allows me to change the layout of SSQ with only one file. So when I actually think of some interesting layouts, I'll try them. SSQ should start the new system soon, but it's still under construction.

Ready for a new Era

I'm sure all of you can't wait for the new SMBhq "Era Pages"

I just seriously got started on work on them, and they are going to be awesome.

To make things easier I am going to work one era at a time.

When that era is done and uploaded, I will work on the next era, and so long.

I think this is the best path to go, especially since the first two eras are basically just archives.

Expect to see the page for the "Retro Era" by the end of October.

On Sale Soon: More than just games.

We just signed up for the Amazon.com associates program.

As soon as we get confimation that the application has gone through, I plan on expanding the SMBhq store to feature more that just games.

Through Amazon.com, you will be able to buy Books, DVDs, Apparel and more. This will make for a more complete store.

So look out for the expanded SMBhq Store, coming soon

End of Summer Report

Well summer is coming to and end and it is time to get back it work with SMBhq.

Well, then again, it's not like I ever stopped.

However, in the Fall you will start to see some serious updates, especially with my sections.

A new Mystery should be posted within a month and all the end of the year Mario news should start pouring in.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that I will be taking some night courses at the ol' college this fall. While I will still find time for SMBhq, I might not have time to work on any of the "lengthy" projects (i.e. the SMBhq "Era" pages).

We'll see how things turn out.

Well, it's been a while since I posted here. SSQ has been quite a tricky thing to update... well... more like I'm kinda lazy. Anyways, I'm planning on finishing our update with all of that shiny equipment. If I have time, I'll deal with some stuff pertaining to SSS. Just so you know, I would appreciate it if someone could help me update SSQ. It's a lot for just me, now that we have around 20 people and all. And, well, I'm not surprised Sean Kelly became co-webmaster of SMBHQ. Oh yeah, that reminds me. Sean, please do something about/with the chat thing. It's handy for when I'm using someone else's computer, but lately all the people who show up have the IQ of crazed chimpanzees... and it tends to be tiring, not to mention cause me to get up to about 99 akicks. Well, that's it for now.

I am now co-webmaster of SMBhq.

How did this happen?

Well Jay told me today in AIM that he and Kyle had something to ask me.

We had a chat in AIM, in which I was thanked for my contributions to SMBhq.

Jay joked that I was going to be fired (we all had a laugh at that), and I was then asked to become a webmaster to help Jay (who doesn't really have the time, and prefers NC).

I, of course, agreed and here I am.

Will I be a good co-webmaster? Only time will tell.

The New RPC

Since December RPC has been on the wayside. It's just that I haven't been able to attend each and every week and the times I do show up, no one else does.

However I am looking forward to the first RPC in over 4 months next Friday (May 7) at 7:00 pm EST (I was originally going to have it at 10, but after noticing last week that people started leaving the chat by 9 that it would be best to keep the original timeslot.)

I have retooled RPC to make it more interesting.

First each participant will be assigned a randomly assigned character. This includes Mario characters and (as a new addition) NC characters.

The next new feature of RPC that will probably debut next week is "The Wheel of Plot Twists". After saying a secret word (which I will make before the start of the story), the wheel will be spun which will result in plot twists such as a character change, an item appearing, and, of course, something happening to someone's (censored).

So, make sure to participate in the new and improved RPC. I am sure you will like it.

Camp FUNgi registration has begun!

Head over to the Camp Fungi page to register for SMBhq's online camp.

I'm working very hard to make this a success and hopefully it will.

You have until the end of June to register.

Hi, here's the wacky person who took over Super Smash Quest a while ago. Anyways, it's a pleasure to talk here, yadda yadda blah blah. I've been working on the special attack system for a while, and an update is going to be soon. We're always accepting new members, of course. Oh, yes, and the April Fools joke I did a while ago was very very last minute... I promise next year for there to be a better joke. Recently, my room on IRC was added to the SMBHQ chat page. Hopefully with this I should get new members. Anyways, enough advertising. Oh, yes, and I must thank Sean Kelly for making the neat logo. I have some paintbrush ability, but the logo picture idea has always been put off for a long time. Anyways, Anyways, Anyways, I need to stop using Anyways. Oh well, that's all I have to say for now.

April Fools ReCap

I would say that this years April Fools joke was a relative success.

Well no one was really fooled, but on the other hand everything was all in good fun.

Here is a quick recap for those of you who missed it.

Sean Kelly Takes Over SMBhq
This joke was REALLY last minute. In fact, I think it was exactly 24 hours ago that I thought this up.

Me and Jay were talking on AIM, like we usually do. Jay had stuff planned for NC, but had nothing for the main page.

Well after some thinking, I thought that it would be a good idea to have it look like I took over SMBhq. I thought of it as a sort of parody of the fact that I have so many sections at SMBhq (and I seem to get more all the time). After writing a quick takeover note and update (which mentioned all the other April Fools jokes), I went to bed and left the rest to Jay.

NC Closed due to Lack of Bandwidth
All I have to say is that Jay really fooled me when he showed me this one (I thought for a second that it was a real 404 message). However, I should let Jay talk about his own joke.

NC LITE
Oh, this is a good one. When I started adding comix and deathmatches and stuff to mysteries, I jokingly started calling it "NC LITE," because mysteries was starting to look like another version of NC.

Well, I was talking to Jay about this in AIM, and I just suddenly realized that this would be an awesome April Fool's joke (after the hugely successful "Second Minus World" joke, I had trouble thinking up of new mysteries jokes, as you can see with the "Bigfoot in Mushroom Kingdom" joke).

Basically I took NC and re-worked the pages giving it a mysteries twist. It you look at it (it's archived at http://www.smbhq.com/users/mysteries/nclite), you can see it's basically mysteries disguised as NC.

This is defininitely the joke I spent the most hours on.

Answering SPAM in the Mailbag
This was very last minute (kind of).

I has another mailbag joke in mind (fake answers to real questions). Then I wrote the opening line ("lets see what kind of stuff you guys are spamming the mailbag with today"), and then it hit me that I should do a joke in which I answer SPAM.

I went though my old seankel.geo@yahoo.com e-mail account (sadly the mailbag e-mail has 0 SPAM) and picked out 10 original, clean (no porn) junk mail messages for me to answer (not an easy task). Then I answered them.

News Report: Super Mario Bros: Special Edition for Nintendo: DS
If you go to the News page (which is now powered by Blogger BTW), you will see a news report that basically threw my fake one out the window: Super Mario Bros WAS being re-released.

But, this was a good idea when I got it. I tried to make this report SO dumb, yet still believable. I hope I succeeded.


Well those are the main jokes (I think there are 1 or 2 small ones that I missed), hopefully you all liked that gags this years and hopefully we can top ourselves in the next year.