Regarding my birthday on July 19th

Yepp, folks, again a year has passed and on July 19th I reach the age of 44 magical years. Why do I mention this on that Blog, which is usually only for things regarding my creative activities? Well, that's not very easy to describe. I have a little problem, which is caused by the great fact, that there are many kind and loving people out there, who want to send me a gift for birthday. Yes, even such beautiful facts can morph into some kind of a problem. Of cause I am very happy if I get to know somehow, that there are kind people who think about how they can make me happy on my birthday. No question!

So what's the problem? A few days ago, I told some folks (who like to talk to others ;)), that I urgently need a new tent and sleepingbag for my tours. My existing tent and sleepingbag are in a very ugly condition because they are of biblical age. The tent poles are damaged and the tent itself has no impregnation anymore. At the sleepingbag the filling is comming out. Well, very quickly there were not just a few kind folks, who thought, that this would be a great birthday present for me. Maybe it was my experience which lead to the fact, that the next nights I had nightmares about my flat being filled with mountains of tents and sleepingbags, so i was drowning in them. The problem is, that neither me or others know what you decided is your birthday present for me. And so it can happen, that suddenly I sit there with 20 tents and 50 sleepingbags... which is not really optimal...

Because of this, I set one thing clear now and here: The person who gives me a new tent and sleepingbag for birthday has stated to do so and therefore there's no use for anybody else to do the same. Therefore I beg all those who eventually had the same idea, and HOPEFULLY didn't buy anything yet, to think about another gift. Again: Several dozens of tents and sleepingbags are not on my wishlist. So pleeeeaaaaseee.... I am very sorry if you , after you thought everything was clear, now have to think about a different present, but I need just one sleepingbag and one tent.

Ok, you got the information that I need a tent and sleepingbag from me myself & I. So why shouldn't I tell you, who now lost his birthday gift idea, what would be an alternative and what else I wish for my birthday? I'm a practically thinking guy ;) So, what do I need? Because I do not want to stretch your financial abilities, I do not mention the bigger wishes... WHAT? You are rich and want to know about them? Well, I could use a quite powerfull laptop for my planned livegigs (live dubbing etc.) and also maybe a nice solid state disk... Well, YOU wanted to know it *LOL* Nope, let's keep it realistic: I allways have a lack of battery power for my Panasonic HDC SD40 camcorder. I would really love to go on a biketour for AlionLive or so for several days without the need of a wall socket. Well that would be a nice idea for a birthday present and I can't get enough battery capacity for my camcorder ever. And that stuff is not very expensive.

Anything else? Not really something I can imagine right now. If you want to send me something for birthday now and you don't know what, you can still do me a favor in gifting me some cash. See: A laptop with the power I need is about 400 Euro. If just a few of you out there send me some cash via Paypal (or otherwise -> let's talk), then even such a relatively big gift as the laptop and/or the SSD are not impossible. My Paypal address is alionsonny@alionsonny.com and if you don't like Paypal, just contact me using the same mailaddress so we find a different way.

However and whatever you send me for birthday, I will be happy about it... unless it's a few dozens of tents and sleepingbags ;)

New things on alionsonny.com!

Yaeh, some stuff has changed and there's a lot more about to happen. Because of a little flu-attack I was not able to accomplish as much as I wanted during the past 1 1/2 weeks, but I want my dear readers and listeners to know about what was still done.

In the main menu you now find an item titled "Sponsoring", which takes you to a page where you can find out about how you can support the alionsonny musicproject. Currently the only option offered is the sponsoring of single songs, but there's more about to come and because of that, this page is currently under permanent development. So it pays to check back from time to time.

Now that is interesting for all of you, who have a business, a product, a website, a blog etc. to advertise for. You just have to donate a VERY SMALL amount of money via the donation page, to be exact ONE EURO and your advertisement will be placed for a whole month on the page which opens for the sponsored song to play and download it. I don't think you find a cheaper way to advertise anywhere. I confess that this is a special offer to get things running. Once it all works, the price will most probably go up, so take your chance while it is still that cheap!

In the course of making songsponsoring possible, I had to make the process of listening to or downloading songs a bit more complicated. But due to the fact, that the idea regarding voluntary donations from listeners didn't work, I had to do this. Download- and streamingbuttons for the songs have completely vanished from the song list page. Instead of using them, you have to now click on the titel of the particular song, which takes you to a page where (if there's a sponsor) the sponsors advertising and a donation reminder is shown, a Flashplayer and also Stream-/Downloadlinks.

Well. that's it so far. Because of the fact that I will work a lot at alionsonny.com in the future, be prepared for some tough changes, surprises and of cause bugs and faillures. Bug reports are allways appreciated, because I cannot find all glitches myself. So if you report them to me, you help me to make alionsonny.com better.