Now that the insanity of the holidays is over (until New Year’s, at least), I finally have a chance to update all of you fine folk on the status of Ein and the album. It’s been a long couple of weeks, but they were better than any two weeks I could have asked for. What initially was a whole lot of worrying for my dog, managed to become that kind of story that you tell people, and they want to go out and do a lot of good for others. That’s rare these days, and I have every one of you to thank.

For those just tuning in, here’s a quick chronilogical series of events to catch you up.

• December 2, 2008 - I released a 9-track preview of a christmas album WIP, entitled 8-Bit Jesus.
• December 9, 2008 - my server is overloaded from all the visits and album downloads.
• December 10, 2008 - I move my VG Art forum, Pixelgasm, purchase a new domain, host, etc.
• December 15, 2008 - I found out my dog, Ein, needed to have surgery.
• December 16, 2008- I post about Ein, install a donation button for those who want a physical copy of the full album, set to release on December 20th.
• December 20, 2008 - I release the full 8-Bit Jesus album, with new cover art by Jude Buffum, by which point I received 23 donations toward the physical album, plus other donations for the download.
• December 22, 2008- Ein has his surgery, and everything goes great.
• December 23, 2008- We pick Ein up from the vet, and he is happy to come home.

Currently, Ein is healing up nicely and back to his old self, terrorizing us and our roommates. Thanks to all the generous donations, the surgery was paid for in full, and went off without a hitch.

To show my thanks, I am having the physical album professionally pressed. The original plan was to do everything myself (produce, print, package, mail, etc.), but because of the number of donations I have gotten, I am going to have one thousand copies made. This is not a limited time deal or anything, and I will continue to accept donations for the download, as well as the physical copies. If I run out of copies from the first press, I will have more made, because I want to make sure that everyone who wants a physical copy of 8-Bit Jesus can get one. I will most likely begin mailing these mid-January, and most of you should receive them before February.

On a side note, I have to mention the original 8-Bit Jesus, www.8bitjesus.com. The guy who started this fantastic t-shirt site emailed me to congratulate me on the success of the album, donated towards it, and showed no sign of being upset that I had pushed his search results to page 30. I definitely feel bad about the fact that I happened to choose the same name for my album that he had for his website, so I have to encourage everyone who reads this to check it out and buy an 8-Bit Jesus t-shirt.

Just to clarify, there is no connection between the 8-Bit Jesus shirts and my 8-Bit Jesus album - it is just straight up coincidence.

Also, next year, I’ll make sure to do a search for “8 Bit Santa” before naming the album…