I’ve been sat on the new design of Befuddle for a few week’s now looking for a window to be able to launch it. At the weekend, in an effort to avoid anything tax related, I completely removed all of the old Befuddle content.

I installed the latest version of WordPress, uploaded my bespoke theme and then played with a few gallery plug-ins. With this new format I can easily create a gallery around a celebrity based on the pictures that I’ve had stored for the last eight years.

The site is now live. I’m aware of a few small things that need tweaking which I’ll crack on with during August, once my tax deadline is out of the way. There is one major bug that I’ll be monitoring. Just like this blog there are often WordPress ‘unable to connect to database’ errors. So I may need to move hosts if I feel that will resolve it.

Below, are the subtle different faces of Befuddle. You can see a lot more at Wayback Machine.

This grab from May 2000, just 3 months after the site was named a ‘Yahoo! Pick of the Week’ and I was featured in national newspapers. The content is primarily story driven ie my friends drunken tales. Further down the page there’s a ‘Scooby Doo’ drinking game, which I still get in my keywords list to this day.

Look at this. It’s 2004 and this site has a bit more colour and begins to love itself. The adapted logo tells you the site focuses on drunk celebs. Traffic peaked at 125,000 visitors daily. The stories are relegated to neglected pages. Look on the right to see ‘Trolleyed’, my shopping portal.

Jump to 2007. Ooh that logo is moving on now But what happened to that partner site ‘Trolleyed’? Well Shop Codes is the same site as Trolleyed. It just never made any money when it was called Trolleyed! The success of Shop Codes though lead to the downfall of Befuddle. Traffic was at a reasonable 1,000 a day before it crashed and burned in September 2007.

Hello to today! New logo, keeping with the spirit that you’re drunk and a little homage to Paris Hilton. Little content at the moment but I’m in no rush. I’ve got another eight years to enjoy working on my own original first website again.

On a day when I’ve been asked to edit some comments from my blog I thought I’d highlight many of the nicer and funnier ones. This whole blog is a very much light hearted look at how I get by and I may have to get some Romanians on the case for a more personal redesign.

I’ve gone past the 100 subscriber milestone too, so thanks all for being entertained by the challenges and opportunities I face.

• MAX “Great post. Brilliant how you’ve turned your money situation around”
• KEV FORTH “Well done mate what a fantastic story”
• GRAHAM KEEN “A great story, and one that can be an inspiration to many.”
• DEBT FREE CHRISTIAN “Well done!”
• BANKRUPTCY ADVICE “Terrific post”

What was the story? Well the clue is in the last two posters lol. It’s of my transformation of credit card junkie to fat bank balance.

£25k debt to £50k in the bank in 10 months

• MAX “ha very funny blog post glad your free now”
• PURPLE “I must admit I did laugh it was the way you told the story”
• GRAHAM KEEN “A great story, and one that can be an inspiration to many.”
• KIRSTY “Only in Ray world could this happen”
• STEPHEN B “That was a great story, very comical vocabulary. I feel for you.”

What was the story? Well Kirsty is right. Only in Ray’s world would I get trapped in my own kitchen just days after my housemate jetted off on his world travels.

I didn’t want to die on Corona and fish fingers

• PHIL “Perhaps it’s a good thing that when I bumped into you in Benidorm, I didn’t think you looked fat!”
• BRAD “Well done, keep it up – thats the hard bit!”
• KIER “I’m about 85 kilos too, but it’s pure muscle “
• KEVIN “Try organic green tea, its the dogs, tatses like shi+e, but totally clears your system”

What was the story? Well it’s about my effort of losing 0.2kg a day in weight at the gym and that you can fit exercise around a full-time job and/or affiliate marketing.

Look after the lbs and the pennies will look after themselves

• KIRSTYM “ooohhh…. yes, Monday was quite mega for me too”
• MARK “I had my best ever day – roll on tremendous tuesday!”

What was the story? Well I recorded record sales on the first weekend of December and it appears that the joy of sales was shared.

‘Mega Monday’ was Mega!