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.

It would be nice to have money.....

When I eventually get a job, there is some things that I could do that would put the money I get to good use:

First I could donate to VGF and help keep SMBhq running.

I could also register the chat applet so people no longer complain about the registration message that's printed whenever somebody types a line.

Yeah, it would be great to have income......

New SMBhq Logo

For those of you who didn't know, for the last month, a vote was held to choose a new SMBhq logo from a choice of 12.

On Friday evening the voting stopped and we had a landslide winner.

So I am pleased to present to you the NEW SMBhq logo:


Expect to see the new logo soon along with a redesigned splash page.

Hmmm

There's less than two weeks left until that yearly practical joke day.

Do we at SMBhq have anything up our sleeves?

Nah.

Status of Golden Toad Awards

OK, I'm a day late with this post. I was waiting to see if anyone else would post.

Anyways, all I have to say is that the Golden Toad awards were successful. TOO successful.

With something like 600 votes (though some of them were duds), it is a big chore to count all of these votes.

And to be quite frank, I don't like chores when it comes to websites. I don't like to have to do something, I want to do something because I want to do it.

I had a music site, which I shut down for this reason (it was too much of a chore to keep it up-to-date).

So where does this leave the Golden Toad Awards?

I honestly don't know. I doubt I will count all the votes in time for the end of March. I'm guessing sometime in April, but I have to actually count some votes before I can set a new date.

So, basically the status of the Golden Toad's is: TBD