Battle of the Bits turned 18 years old last May. Instead of having feral offspring, I created this website. It has taught me how to code, cooperate with others, and even gave me tech biz opportunities I'd otherwise not have. What a wild journey it has been!

Coincidentally, we lost our beloved .org around the same time "Death of the Internet" was hitting the headlines. I had a lot of mixed feelings about putting in a bid for our classic domain name, but wish I had. The auction could have been much less than the $1700 we were being told we owed to get it back. Now we'll never know. I have absolute control over our .com however, and this most assuredly will not happen again.

It has never been my intention to make BotB an actual business. I built this site because I like to compo. I did start a business

tho. I'm still confused on how everything works, but I'm told all my income is LoBlast income which includes BotB donations. Truth be told, w/o that money my business would have failed already. I wanted to share this for transparency's sake.

Right now my store has dropshipped BotB stuff

. That means orders are handled by another company, Printful, and they have multiple fulfillment centers in Europe and North America

. This should help a lot with shipping costs plus I don't have to hold an insane inventory hoping folks will buy. I will be adding the 7" Winter Chip I vinyl record and stickers soon which I will be fulfilling myself (and is a separate shipping fee from Printful shipping).

The reason for this post is simply feeling embarrassed that I'm adding an ad banner on the home page that points to BotB gear on the LoBlast store when social networks are deciding to be more profitable and enacting controversial changes. I have no plans to change this place other than feature enhancements. There will be no paywall. Let's do another 18 years! ₍₍(ง◠‿◠)ว⁾⁾ (◠‿◠ و)♪

Thank you all for your support.

EIGHTEEN MORE YEARS

let’s see what another 18 years brings us

The domain migration was just BotB moving out of the old .org house and into a real .com domain for adults ;)

When I hear "ad banner" I think of some lame-ass thing that has nothing to do with the site itself.

I wouldn't consider a link to the BotB shop to be an ad, it's more just a heads-up that there's a place where we can buy cool BotB stuff to help keep things running.

a merch banner!!

Shiiiiiiill. Nah, just kidding, I didn't think of it as a banner either. I'd gladly get my own BotB garment for SWAG.

A banner would take us to BotB.org T_T .

the merch banner looks neat and the swag is rad!!

it's all cool but I think there's a missed opportunity in giving the npcs who sometimes appear at the top a new purpose.
not too late to make them sell tshirts and all that stuff tho

TFW you have the best T shirt in the whole town, but nobody ever notices

Finally, you have some wares for me!

Finally I can wear Puke7's face on my body. Ordered one immediately. Hopefully immortality ensues.

Contrary to popular belief wearing a puke shirt has no noticeable direct effect on mortality. It does raise by 7% the probability that enemies will drop pizza slices when defeated.

That is a seriously sexy web site at <loblast.com>, even with the JavaScript dependence. Everyone should check it out.

I've added BotB spritesheet socks

and a BotB logo shirt

!

turns out wearing botb warez will increase your sex appeal by 108.24%

source: i unlocked the following achievement, "premarital Gex"

Puke, I just wanna say that I literally did not notice the ad banner until today. People kept talking about it and I was like "Oh, my adblocker must be blocking it." But nope, it's so basic and unobtrusive that it doesn't even qualify as an ad. Good stuff.

glad its unobtrusive

i've decided to raise prices after this weekend

i looked at other people using similar services and its meant to be a type of donation anyways

$18 shirts will go up to $20
other stuff will go up $1-3

i ordered a bunch of goodies :D

Who among us will be the first to get laid while wearing a puke7 shirt?

omg virtualman you have the best ideas

virtualman I find myself obligated to be the first, will post an update if successful.

edit: she's on board

the puke7 shirt stays on

i just ordered a loblast shirt,,,if you want a model for the site i can send photos!

thank you kqa!!

anyone who wants to share photos showing off botb/loblast products are very welcome to!! <3

also didn't realize this is a holiday weekend...
so I will be upping the prices on Tuesday instead of Monday
(i can never remember the difference between labor day or memorial day other than i used to get those days off)

Baron, et al. Thank you so much for all the years.
The site is the shit! xD

Now, about the goodies. I'm not financially stable at the moment. Turns out this n00b is getting divorced and that shit sucks hahaha. I will kindly ask of you to help spread the word about me teaching classes and help me promote soonish/in the future xD Will do English, Spanish, and soon...something spicy.

Yet! I found the mug and the mousepad and the shirts to be something I MUST OWN NAO. Let me rebuild finances but those are on the look out.

time flies by, also is a fly without wings called a walk ?

Mission accomplished.