An indexed directory of every comic book store and trading card store in the United States & Canada. This site is best viewed full screen at 800 x 600 screen resolution.
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05/29/10
WOW! It's been a whole year since I've updated this page, letting you all know what's going on. And what a year it has been!! The biggest thing to happen in that time was that I bought a sign company. I've been in the "sign" business for 30 some odd years now, and I got the opportunity to purchase a majority percentage of a well established company in my home town. So it just made sense to me to stop working for someone else's company, and start working for myself. The company name is Burgess Signs Inc., and I've been working on the website for it, and what I've got done so far can be found at www.BurgessSigns.com.
I want to express my deepest gratitude to those of you who submitted updates to me during this year, and had to wait quite a while for me to get to them. I think I've finally found a balance between my new business and having some personal time to be able to do other things, like maintaining TML. All updates submitted to me as of today have been posted to the site.
05/09/09
On May 2nd (Free Comic Book Day), my computer crashed and refused to boot back up. Because of that, I determined that it was time to get a new computer. I ordered one built to my specifications on Mon. May 4th, and received delivery of it on Fri. May 8. I did not suffer any data loss, as my hard drive from the old computer are still fine. It's basically just a matter of reinstalling software, and locating and moving my data to the new drives. I have JUST completed getting my email restored from my old hard drive, and getting my FTP program installed. I have a whole lot of work yet ahead of me, but figured I'd post this to let people know why there is a delay in getting updates posted. I'll post another update once I get things back to somewhat normal again.
01/31/09
All updates submitted to me as of today are posted to the site. Again, I still have a few update related things I've still got to finish up, but the normal day-to-day updates are "current".
9/02/08
When I first set up my "Project Wonderful" ad boxes, I had one on each State/Province page. This made it possible for retailers to advertise on just the State/Province page in which they operated out of. This has not worked for me. I got practically no interest at all with this set up. So, as of today, I have combined them all into (1) ad box. If you are the current high bidder for my "Project Wonderful" ad box, your ad is displayed upon the entire site (excluding Profile Pages). Hopefully, the increased statistics for the entire site will generate better results.
7/28/08
Current status of updates is . . . drum roll please . . . caught up! Yea! I have a few update related things I've still got to finish up, but the normal day-to-day updates are "current". Regarding the conversion to running TML from a database, nothing much has changed so far. It's still basically at the conceptual stage. It will happen, but like all things with this site, since I have limited time to work on it, things tend to change rather slowly. Oh well, I'll get there eventually. *smile*
3/16/08
Ditto my last post . . . it's been a while since my last update here. I've fallen a bit behind in my updates, yet again. SORRY! I'm doing the best that I can, with very limited time. I will get caught up again, so please bear with me.
12/16/07
Well, it's been a while since my last update here, so I thought it was about time I checked in. Everything's been going fairly good lately, with no major hiccups. Update's are being (generally) keep up to date, so no troubles there. I'm still planning to get the site revamped using a database at it's core. I'm still figuring things out in that regard. Hopefully, I'll soon be ready to get quotes to implement what I've figure out. "Project Wonderful" has helped to trickle in some funds. All in all, same old "slow and steady". I may not be the fastest to get where I want to go, but I am determined to get there. :o)
Anyway, I hope that all reading this have a very happy holiday season.
Mark S. Adams
8/31/07
A couple days after writing my last update, my computer died. I went to bed one night, and woke up the next morning to the old Windows "Blue Screen of Death". Upon shutting the computer down, it simply would not turn back on again. I couldn't even get the motherboard to boot to bios. After many, many trials and errors (and 2 1/2 weeks), the solution finally came to light.
It appears that I had a bad outlet port on my Battery-Back-Up/Surge-Protector. That caused the Power Supply Unit in my computer to fry . . . twice. Yup, I burned out two different PSU's before figuring out the true source of my troubles. The first PSU burned out one of the memory sockets on the motherboard, and fried the associated memory chip too. So, thinking a faulty PSU was the source of my troubles, I proceeded to get an exact motherboard replacement (thanks to ebay), new memory chips, and a new PSU. This seemed to fix the problem . . . for all of 2 hours. And then the computer totally stopped working again. And like before, I was not even able to get the motherboard to boot to bios.
Totally frustrated at this point, I was at a loss. What on earth could be going on? When I got everything checked out again, the brand new PSU was bad. Being that is highly unlikely that a brand new PSU would fail that quickly without something causing it, I was finally able to determine that the Battery-Back-Up had to be causing the PSU's to fail. So, that was quickly tossed in the trash, and a new one bought. The failure of the 2nd PSU didn't do as much damage to my new motherboard like when it first happened. But it did hurt it. The motherboard I use has built-in soundcard features, and that's what was hit this time around. So, I just disabled that in the bios, and dropped in a regular PCI soundcard.
So, a new Battery-Back-Up, a new (now, slightly damaged) motherboard, new memory chips, and my third PSU and all seems to be working again. I've also just bought off of ebay a third motherboard, just in case the one I have now is damaged more that is currently apparent . . . one can never be too sure.
Now . . . time to get caught up on these darned updates. :o)
8/12/07
I've been steadily working on submitted updates as they come in, and staying ~fairly~ caught up with them. I've been averaging 1 to 2 week turnaround on submissions most of the time, and only occasionally slipping and going longer than that. I've been working on recompiling COIN too, but it's going much slower than I had originally anticipated. For those waiting for that, please bear with me. I will eventually get it back online.
Recently I've had someone make a very serious offer to purchase TML from me. After MUCH consideration, I simply could not see myself parting with TML, even at the significant monetary level that was being offered. While the thought of selling TML tempted me, I just couldn't do it. I've devoted so much time and effort into TML so far, and I'm so ~very~ close to the next evolutionary stage for the site.
Currently TML is basically just a whole bunch of hand-coded static webpages. Because of that, it's a real bugger to maintain. And I do mean a ~real~ bugger. The reason the site was created in that manor is fairly basic: I just don't have the knowledge required to create a database driven website.
So, these past few months I've been working on a "to-do" list, writing up how I'd like the site to operate if it was working from a database. Due to my limited free time, I have pretty much given up that I'll be able to learn what's needed to do the work myself. So, I figured I'd just write up how I wanted it to work and then hire the work done by someone with that kind of knowledge.
Which brings me to one of the newest changes that will be happening to TML. I will very shortly be adding new advertising opportunities throughout this site, using the "Project Wonderful" advertising program. With any luck, this will help to offset these development costs.
4/28/07
As of today, all updates sent in to me have been posted to the site. My first priority has always been to get TML "caught-up" with all the updated information that's been submitted to me. After about 2-1/2 very rough years in my life, that has (finally!!!) happened.
Which brings me to my COIN program. This has been "on hold" since my computer crash, way back when. I'll now begin the process of recompiling the data to restart the program. Basically, regarding COIN, the computer crash set me back to the point of starting it over, brand new. For all intents and purposes, that's exactly what I'm going to have to do. All retailers that joined COIN ~after~ the crash, I have their submission forms just waiting for me to gather the info and enter it into the spreadsheet. For retailers that joined COIN ~prior~ to the crash, I'll be trying to piece the info together from partial files that I have. In all likelihood though, I'll probably have to ask the majority of those retailers to re-submit their preferences to me.
With hopeful expectation, I look to have COIN back in operation again by late June. Thanks for your patience.
4/01/07
As of today, all updates sent in to me PRIOR to 3/18/07 have been posted to the site. That leaves only those submitted to me within the last two weeks still needing to be posted. I'll be getting to those very shortly.
3/11/07
As of today, all US States, Canadian Provinces, and International countries that begin with the letter "A" through the letter "K" have been brought current. I'm still working to get caught up, and will post more updated info soon. Thanks again for everyone's patience with me.
2/10/07
By early December of 2006 I had most all updates (that had been submitted to me by that point in time) posted to the site. There were a few "odd-ball" updates that had not been done yet, but they mainly affected just a few international counties. Otherwise, TML was totally caught up. I even had thoughts of being able to recompile my COIN list.
Then I got totally buried at work, pulling lots & lots of overtime. Unfortunately, being a salaried employee, the overtime didn't add any extra to our bank account. It just cut heavily into my available free time. What little free time I had left got rapidly eaten up by the holidays, family commitments, etc.
Bottom line . . . I'm behind again. Please bear with me. Hopefully I'll be able to burn through the backlog of submissions that I have fairly quickly.
Also of note: I've removed the "NOTICE" page where I was posting updated news and info, and have replaced it with this page. I should be able to keep this page much more "current" with TML news and update info.
6/25/06
As of today, both the U.S.A. & Canada are 100% current and caught up. Wooo Hooo!! Any and all updates for these two countries should now occur within the standard two weeks of my receiving the update submission. I currently have 118 submissions yet to do for International listings & have begun working on getting these posted.
1/29/06
I just keep plugging away at the submissions that I've received and continue to receive. I'm finally starting to see being "caught-up" as a reality. Hopefully, in the next month or so. As of this evening, Canada is 100% current. I currently have 146 submissions yet to do for the United States, and 100 submissions for International listings, for a grand total of 246 submissions in backlog. I'm working on the U.S. ones, and will then attack the International ones. Thanks to everyone for their patience with me while I've tried to regain control over this beast that is called The Master List.
7/24/05
The new jobs for my wife and myself seem to be working out just fine with both of us settling into our respective new working routines.
As for TML, I've been steadily working to get caught up on all the submitted updates. As of today all submissions for the U.S. states of Alabama through Nevada (alphabetically) are posted. I still have a massive amount of updates to work though for the balance of the U.S. states, Canada & International listings. When I can, I'm diligently working to get these posted. I know that it's taking me much longer than I ever expected it to for me to get caught back up. The shear volume of updates that I received during my "dark" periods, combined with the continuing large volume of updates coming in, has been somewhat overwhelming. Your patience and understanding with me during this period of "catching up" is greatly appreciated.
My COIN program is still the most affected, with it still being "on hold" until further notice. My focus has to be getting TML caught up, thus COIN simply will not be recompiled until it is. Retailers are still highly encouraged to join the program though as it will be viable again in the not to distant future.
11/21/04
It looks like my wife and I have found new positions at close to what we had been previously making financially. And fortunately, we didn't even have to move. We had been actively pursuing options around the country, figuring that we'd have to move in order for me to find a position. The local market just presented few options - for me in particular. Just recently though, low and behold, I got lucky. Another company in town, a semi-rival to the one I just left, had the perfect position open up. My wife has also been able to find a position, so with a bit of juggling, and a bit of tightened belts, we should recover just fine.
The bit of bad news is that I have had another hard drive problem. I lost a bunch of stuff relating to TML. Fortunately, submitted corrections are stored in my email, and that is still just fine. I'll be starting to get those posted as soon as I can. However, I have lost a whole bunch of files that were very important to me in creating and maintaining the site. Fortunately, most visitors shouldn't notice. The primary "hit" I've taken again affects my COIN program. It's probably going to be down for several more months.
Update
As many of you may be aware, TML has not been getting updated as regularly as it should be. This is an explanation of WHY that's been, and will continue to be that way for a while.
It is also a plea for you to have patience with me.
Several months back I experienced a hard drive failure, and have had to rebuild my computer from scratch salvaging as many data files as I could. Except for my master COIN file, most everything was salvaged. However, that computer crisis did put me behind in posting updates. I diligently worked to get caught back up over the next few months, and just last month was finally back on track.
And then my wife & I took a two week vacation. Well, I got behind again, but I thought, no problem, as that's not too much to get caught back up with. Then the REAL news hit.
On the 4th day back to work after vacation, both my wife & I found ourselves unemployed. We had both worked for the same company, and both had invested 20 years into the company. Now, please do not worry about us, as everything will turn out just fine, I'm sure. However, this does mean that I need to focus on getting re-employed. I will still work on getting updates done as I can make time for them, but they are no longer one of my higher priorities. PLEASE BEAR WITH ME during this time.
Also, my wife and I are taking the approach that this is a positive turn for our life, and that this can only lead to better things in the future. We appreciate your positive vibes and thoughts during this time of transition. Thanks!!
05/29/10