Well here it is, the eve of the New Year and with it the hope and promise of new and better things to come. I admit, coming into the holidays I was feeling really down about things, especially about how they relate to life in general. Having gone through Christmas with my family and those close to me however, I can honestly say that life has been pretty good this past week.

Christmas was not only very enjoyable, but it even held a few surprises. Although part of me feels bad, even guilty for not being able to participate in spreading the gift-giving joy this Christmas, I will try not to let that detract from the joy of all the thoughtful gifts I have received this Christmas. My sister had a hand in some of the better gifts I had received when she prompted her boyfriend to get me a copy of the GTA: San Andreas soundtrack for Christmas. You go girl. She also prompted her dad (my step dad) to get me special Matrix DVD set that is out. I even got a really cool wall clock that have the hour and minute hands shaped like legs from my sister. Thanks sis.

Altogether it was quite a nice gift assortment, but the biggest surprise was from my mom who gave me $400 in cash, which consequently was around the amount I needed to start my little internet business venture. Aside from the conversation we had, as described in my last entry,  I guess it should have come as no surprise. She is my mom and despite her little eccentricities, deep down I know she wants what is best for me.

So anyway, after Christmas I had all this cash burning a hole in my pocket. I had to fight off the impulse to splurge it all, so I took at least $400.00 of my Christmas money and dropped it in the bank like it was burning hot. Actually, I needed to do that since all the purchases for my business venture were going to be online and I needed spending power behind my debit card, so it was all good. Since then, I have bought the software, hosting and domain for my new website and have been working on the web page development this past week. Aside from a few minor snags such as the domain name not having been propagated yet, it is all coming along quite nicely.

Since we are on the subject allow me to share the vision of my new business venture. In a way, it is a culmination of what I have been learning in school, what I have learned from my most recent job and my idea of a "dream career". The result is http://beyondzine.com/. Like I mentioned earlier there have been a few snags with the domain name servers so the actual domain that my site is going to be isn't quite working yet, but I do have the temporary viewing address up and running http://64.91.237.2/~beyondzi/.

There is going to be two parts to my website. The first part of the website involves the stuff that I learned from and what am doing for my current employer, that is to generate thousands of keyword based pages with pay-per-click advertising on them. This hopefully is where the income will be generated. Since the pages are based on certain keywords and the software automatically generates content for these keywords, it provides the chance for my pages to come up on search engines such as Google and further chance for people landing on my pages who are interested in that string of keywords to click on advertising targeted towards those keywords. It's a lovely concept really and a relatively new one at that. The people at Google are fucking geniuses and hopefully I will be able to cash in on that.

The other part of my website is going to be an actual online magazine with articles, reviews and the works. The focus of this magazine will of course be my interests such as gaming, gadgets, movies, music and more. I spend quite a bit of time playing games, so I will likely throw in reviews, hints and walkthroughs. I have already have the ball rolling in this department, sort of. I started a blogger account dedicated to such articles at http://beyondzine.blogspot.com/ and I plan on maintaining that account to mirror the articles I will be posting on the main site.

I also envision myself purchasing high-priced gadgets like the ipod and various competing mp3 players like the Creative Zen Jukebox and the Sony Network Walkman and doing comparisons, doing product recommendations and the like. The "work" part of it is maintaining the website and providing well-written and informative articles on regular intervals. I'm tapping into my creative and technical sides and I will also be tapping into my ability to write clearly and interestingly. Even if this thing turns out to be a total flop, which in all likeliness it won't, but even if it does, I would have still enjoyed every moment and every ounce of energy I have and will be pouring into it. This by far is the toughest, most ambitious project I have embarked on thus far and hopefully the proverbial "A" grade I am aiming for will have a positive impact in my life.

As for NYE, it started a little early. I went out last night for New Year's Eve-Eve with two of my cousins and a friend. One of my cousins and our friend had separate previous NYE engagements so we decided to hang out the night before. My cousin had a gift certificate to Maggiano's a really good Italian restaurant, so we got our eat on and headed over to John Barleycorn for a little dance action.

As of tonight, I'm going to be spending NYE with my cousin and another friend at one of the nightclubs that we used to frequent. Tickets for open bar until midnight have already been purchased so I don't have to worry about drink money and since I'm usually the designated driver, I'll have a few hours after midnight to sober up and have a good time before we head out of that place. We might hit another place for an after party as well. Lots of stuff going on for the eve. I think this New Year is going to be a very exciting time with lots of new challenges. I can already feel the "master plan" shifting and evolving in my head. I guess we shall see what happens within the next few months.