"Courage and perseverance are important if one is to run anything resembling a news organization...the folks at theOtaku.com have demonstrated themselves to have ample quantities of both."
~ TCJ (The Comics Journal)
"A couple years of experience in the Otaku circle have taught me at least one good lesson--to trust Adam."
~ myO member
"Adam is actually a decently accomplished troll."
~ Allamorph
"The scale of Adam's cunning genius is truly frightening."
~ TimeChaser
Now that we're five months past Version Vibrant's launch, the site really doesn't need me as much as it used to...theO's team does a great job day to day and Version Vibrant's technology is such that I can manage improvements to it without using 100% of my time.
When we launched VV so many months ago, I predicted that it would either take off huge, requiring 100% of my time to manage growth, or it would be a more long-term, slow and steady endeavor.
I was really hoping for the first one, since that's what every producer/entrepreneur/creator hopes for when they work on a big, ambitious project, but the result was closer to the second one.
Launching the site was kind of a nightmare because I had a lot of health and relationship issues right before and right after which made me slower to react than I should have and resulted in us losing a bunch of visitors and members. I spent about a month in bed, yikes. VV's launch might always haunt me in some way.
I'm not sure if it's possible for theO to ever grow as big as I'd like it to without introducing lots of cheesy, gimmicky things which I'm not really interested in doing. We'll just keep improving over time, it's fine for theO to be a really solid and "medium" sized site than filled with nonsense and gigantic. Oh well...
I'm going to start working 50% on theO and 50% researching toward my next big project. I'm taking things easy because it's draining working on them. I have two interesting ideas: One web-based and one iPod Touch/iPhone based, all subject to change...
Sometimes you make a small, embarrassing mistake and, when you catch it, you hope that no one notices. Other times...
(1) Over 150 gifts were sent so far since we launched the GIFTS feature, not bad.
(2) If you EVER see a rude comment on one of your works, don't respond or get into an argument, just report it. We froze a member today and deleted all their comments today. It's something we don't tolerate
(3) I got my first bar in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu today, I was very proud 
Happy Birthday timechaser!
-- I look forward to this coming week, where I can start my "don't work from home" routine. I found a few suitable places to work from, including Starbucks and the largest Japanese book store in North America :-D
-- These "gifts" are driving me BANANAS. It's almost as bad as the CUPCAKE thing. I want to take a SWORD to that portfolio row. Right after I finish eating a bowl of RAMEN. And maybe some POCKY.
-- Tomorrow is my junk food day...
-- The Bossman Cupcake contest is coming to an end very soon. I already have a winner in my head, unless a last minute entry inspires me.
-- My consecutive push up count has increased from 46 to 52 from the last 7 days of using the hundredpushups.com exercise routine. I'll keep chugging along.
-- Tomorrow is my junk food day, so I am excited about that
-- Our mysterious upcoming gifts feature will have three levels to it:
Otakuite
Senior Otaku and above
Premium
-- Whenever I order Chinese food, I tell them:
Chicken and broccoli, with sauce on the side (this is key), and brown rice
I then will *lightly* dip the food in the sauce rather than pour it all over. I think this is the healthiest Chinese food you can get (and tastes good too).
